


Camcorder

by kryptonianmenace



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, High School, M/M, Social Media, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2020-11-27 05:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 41
Words: 20,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20943023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kryptonianmenace/pseuds/kryptonianmenace
Summary: Brendan "Ben" Kavanaugh and Ian Katsaros are two high school students who decide to start vlogging on the new website CameraCloud. In a Hannah Montana type situation, none of their classmates recognize them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written a few years ago, and I finally decided to post it.

“Ben! Hey!” Brendan lifted his head from his phone as he heard his best friend yelling for him. “Wait up!”

“Hey, Ian,” he said, pausing and shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie as he waited for the taller boy to catch up. “Do you need a ride today?”

“No, but,” Ian drawled, slinging an arm around Brendan’s slightly hunched shoulders and messing up the other boy’s already scruffy brown hair some more. “The theatre interest meeting is today, remember? And since we’re in charge of our crew this year, I obviously had to come get ya, right?”

Brendan ducked out from under Ian’s arm and stared at the ground, ruffling his hair with his left hand under the pretense of trying to fix it. “I know, but I mean. It’s just-- it’s just the interest meeting, right?” he began, glancing at the tanned face across from him that was giving him a patient, though still amused look. “It’s not like it’s mandatory. We won’t be getting any work done, you know, and we’ll have to be there with all the other crews, and I, and I just don’t see why I have to go, yeah? So I was gonna head home.”

Ian chuckled, rolling his eyes. “You think I didn’t guess you’d try to get out of this?” he asked, fixing the brown-haired boy in front of him with a pointed look, left eyebrow raised in invitation to deny it. Brendan flushed lightly and scowled in a random direction at the implication that he was predictable. “I talked to Berg and he said we could chill in the storage room and clean up in there a bit if we wanted to stay, since we still have stuff left over from last strike.”

“Oh,” Brendan said, looking back at the ground again. Ian smirked as he saw him start to warm up to the idea of staying after. “What about Parker? Is he coming?”

Ian shrugged, running a hand lightly through his dark, straightened hair. “Said he might, if his band finishes up with practice early enough, but if he does he’ll be late.”

“‘Kay,” he said lightly, rubbing his upper right arm and glancing at the students walking past them and into the parking lot.

Ian let out a sudden grin and started tugging Brendan back inside. “Come on, I wanted to tell you something but I think you’ll be more open to it if you’re reorganizing gel frames or something.”

“That’s… not reassuring…” Brendan said slowly as he let himself be pulled along. “Are you sure it’s more of an ask me while I’m organizing question, or do you think I’ll need to be fixing a jumper cable not to freak?”

Ian flashed a contemplative look at the ceiling as he pushed their way through the crowd to the theatre, with Brendan stuttering apologies in his wake to displaced and disgruntled classmates on the slightly older boy’s behalf. “Good question. Maybe the jumper cables.”

“I don’t think I’m going to like what you wanna tell me,” Brendan mumbled as they reached the theatre doors, following as Ian led them down through the clumps of students milling about the house aisles and towards the teachers talking near the edge of the stage.

“Hey Mr. Berg!” Ian greeted as he tugged his friend along.

“Katsaros and Kavanagh! Good to see you, boys,” Mr. Berg replied, setting down his bag of papers on the stage. “We’re about to start the meeting, so go on and clean like you said you would. I’ll see you in class tomorrow, boys.”

Brendan gave him a small nod and wave of acknowledgement as he followed Ian up the stage right stairs to the lights storage room door in the wings. He grinned when he saw the goofy signs they had put on the door in their sophomore and junior years and dropped his bag next to Ian’s by the ladder up to the beam, letting the door fall shut behind him. Various gels and their frames were scattered across the table, along with an overflowing box of cables in need of repair. Instruments were sitting out, making it hard to walk in the small space, and yet to be dismantled running lights were sitting on top of the mess on the table. Speakers were sitting on top of the cutting board, which Brendan made a face at.

“Before we talk about what I wanted to tell you, I had a question to ask you,” Ian asked, snapping Brendan’s attention away from the mess and towards him as he opened the fridge by the door.

“Yeah?”

Ian paused in his search of the fridge and propped his chin on the open door, looking him in the eye. “Are you gonna be okay as a crew head on your own when I stage manage in the winter?”

Brendan opened and closed his mouth, startled, before looking at his feet and rubbing his upper right arm, shrugging and giving a noncommittal noise as response.

“Cos seriously, Ben, I’m sure Berg’ll put Parker in charge if you really don’t want to. I know Parker keeps saying he doesn’t want a leadership position, but he’ll do it if it’s too hard for you.”

He shrugged again, turning to pick up a broken cable and fiddle with it. “I’ll see when the time comes. We still have the fall show, and I’ll have you to help me get used to it.”

Ian stared at him for a moment longer before nodding and turning back to the fridge. He pulled out a grocery bag full of snacks and offered it to his friend. “I put it in here this morning for whenever we get hungry during crew. Want some?”

Brendan shook his head and turned to the cart sitting in front of the dimmer racks, opening up the toolbox that sat on top of it. Once he had the tools he was looking for, he moved a Source IV away from the generator and sat on the floor between the generator and the effects cabinet. Ian watched from the fridge as he began to repair the jumper cable.

“Think you’re ready for my next thing?” he asked, moving to grab another cable and a set of tools and sitting down across from Brendan.

All Brendan did was shrug again.

Ian sighed, unscrewing the cap of the cable head. “I have a new story idea, but it’s about a guy who becomes a professional vlogger.”

“And?” Brendan asked, glancing up at Ian briefly as he began cutting down the wires.

“And since I don’t know anything about what that’s like, I wanted to try vlogging to experience that part of it for myself.”

Brendan was silent, pushing the freshly-cut wires back in place and screwing them in. He glanced up at Ian again. “What else? What’s the part that I’m not gonna like?”

Ian pushed himself up off the floor to grab the silver Sharpie, signing his name on his now repaired jumper cable. He tossed the Sharpie to Brendan and let out a puff of air. “I was hoping you’d vlog with me.”

Brendan stared up at him, eyes wide.

“Look, I know it freaks you out, but you’re my best friend, and a vlogger talks about their life, right? And you’re basically always with me, so it’d be wrong not to do this with you,” Ian said, sitting back down across from his best friend. “And I’ve already decided that we can do whatever you need to feel comfortable, just please, Ben. Please consider it.”

Brendan stared down at his crossed legs and clenched his right hand against his jeans, left hand going up to rub his upper right arm. “I… I don’t know, Ian.”

“Alright,” he said, getting up. “Think about it while we work, and then if you think of things you think would help if we did do it, let me know, ‘kay?” At the answering nod he continued. “Okay, let’s put off fixing the jumpers for now and get to work on this mess. Can you believe Patrick left his speakers on the cutting board again?”

“And then he went and graduated,” Brendan added, shaking his head and getting up to put the tools away.

Ian let out a loud laugh at that as he moved the speakers to their spot under the table. “Yeah, that asshole.”

“Are we gonna send these instruments up to the back beam today? Or should we leave it?” Brendan asked as he sorted the instruments. One group was the ones that belonged on the back beam, while the other was the ones he could easily hang on the racks on either side of the ladder.

“Leave it,” Ian said. “We’re lazy and that’s effort.”

Brendan laughed and moved the first group so it was out of the way as he started hanging the second group on the racks.

“Hey, do you know who’s gel genie this year?” Ian asked, holding a stack of gels in his left hand while he pulled open the gel drawer with his right. “You, me, Parker, or a newbie?”

Brendan finished tightening the c-clamp of the PARnel he had been hanging and went to grab a stepladder to reach the next rung on the rack. “I thought I was gel genie and Parker was cable captain.”

“Then why am I doing your job?”

“Because you love me.”

Ian huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Sure.”

The two worked in silence until the table was cleared and most of the instruments were hung, and then went back to sitting on the floor and fixing the jumpers.

“Hey… About the vlog thing,” Brendan said, making Ian look up at him.

“Yeah?”

“Could we… use different names?”

Ian shrugged. “Sure.”

“I just. I don’t want my name associated with my face on the internet,” Brendan added.

“What names would we use?” Ian asked. Brendan gave him a confused look and he rolled his eyes. “If I use my real name, people will figure out that you’re not, since we’re practically inseparable in their minds.”

“Oh,” Brendan said. “I was thinking of using my middle name or something.”

“William? You could shorten it to Liam, like that one actor you like.”

Brendan shrugged. “Yeah, that’ll work. What about you?”

Ian laughed, leaning back against the cabinet behind him and making a contemplative face at the ceiling. “I could do my middle name, too. But Dakota’s not really my favorite name.”

“It’s not too bad. You could shorten it.”

“To what? Dako?” Ian scoffed. “That sounds stupid. Kota? It reminds me too much of Brother Bear.”

“You love Brother Bear,” Brendan said with a roll of his eyes, turning back to his cable. “You love it so much that you’ll talk yourself into using Kota for the videos, and this whole conversation will be pointless.”

“Not true,” Ian protested.

“Shut up and work, Kota,” Brendan said, smirking.

Ian rolled his eyes and good naturedly kicked his friend in the leg. “You’re an ass.”


	2. Chapter 2

Brendan stared at his face on the computer screen and bit his lower lip. Why was he even doing this?

He let out a sigh and turned his back on the webcam for the eighth time in a row.

“Come on,” he muttered to himself. “Do it for Ian.”

He sat like that, muttering to himself for a good twenty minutes before he suddenly whirled around and hit the record button.

“This is probably the worst decision of my life,” he began. “But Kota wanted to do this and he somehow convinced me. So yeah.”

He stopped looking at the camera and looked down at his lap, where he was fiddling with a loose string on the blue plaid button-up he was wearing. He glanced up again.

“Dude, what am I even supposed to vlog about? My mom’s obsession with chihuahuas? You know, she added more figurines since you were last over, by the way. Now there are eight more of the damn things to stare at me as I walk through the various rooms of my house. Told you she’d break a hundred with that collection of hers.”

He paused again, staring in a random direction.

“No, but seriously,” he continued, snapping his gaze back to the camera. “Am I supposed to sit here and look cute or whatever? Is that why you wanted me to do this?”

He let out a groan of annoyance and leaned back in his chair, right foot resting on the seat and left leg nudging at the ground to turn his chair back and forth slightly.

The video didn’t last much longer, with only a few more random comments, and eventually, Brendan sat staring blankly at the computer, trying to figure out how to edit.

He was startled out of his thoughts by his phone buzzing, alerting him to the fact that his best friend was calling. He let out another groan and ran a hand down his face, picking up and putting it on speaker out of habit.

“What?” he whined.

_ “Hello to you, too, lil miss sunshine and daisies,”  _ Ian drawled, and Brendan could practically hear the eye roll sent his way.

“What do you want, jackass?” he asked, getting up and sprawling on his bed face down, letting out a huff of breath as he flopped down. He left his phone on the desk three feet away, so he had to raise his voice to continue talking. “You’ve gotta stop calling me at night, y’know? I’m getting sick of your voice

_ “You love me,” _ was Ian’s reply. _ “Anyways, I’m bored. Amuse me.” _

Brendan rolled his eyes and turned onto his back, propping himself up on his elbows so he was facing the phone, empty desk chair substituting for his best friend as the recipient of the faces he was making at his friend’s actions. “Who the fuck makes a website called CameraCloud? It sounds like some cheap off brand version of VidNet or something. Why are we even using it?”

Ian chuckled. _ “Oh, hon. It’s the way of the internet: a website gets insanely popular, to the point where those who don’t use it are considered weird. And that’s great! It’s so useful! But then another website starts getting popular, and eventually, the old favorite? It’s the new Myspace.” _

“You love Myspace,” Brendan said. “You love it cos it’s so unused and you’re a weirdo who thinks that’s cool.”

_ “Shush, not the point. That’s for my amusement, not for me to communicate with others. And CamCloud’s getting to be the next new thing, and everyone knows it.” _

“It’s still kind of a weird name,” Brendan mumbled.

_ “What?” _ Ian asked.

He rolled his eyes and repeated himself louder.

_ “Don’t lie to me, man, you totes wanna be called a CamCorder and you know it.” _

“Did you just say ‘totes’?” Brendan asked with a laugh, raising an eyebrow and shaking his head fondly.

_ “Hells yeah. I’m all hip with the lingo and all that jazz. What’s shaking, my homedog?” _

Brendan chuckled and moved back over to the desk. “Trying to edit a video.”

_ “No way, did you actually make one?” _

Another eye roll escaped from the brown haired boy as he gave an affirmative, before continuing. “Thing is, I can’t find the video to edit.”

_ “Didja save?” _

“Thought I did. Lemme check the camera thing.”

Once Brendan had gotten out of the video editing software and back in the camera function of his laptop, he stared at the screen and let out a soft “oh my god” of horror.

_ “What?”  _ Ian asked.

“Oh my god,” Brendan said, letting out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Oh my god, Kota, I never stopped recording. That’s why I couldn’t find it in my folders.”

Ian was silent for a moment, pausing as he processed his friend’s words and the unexpected use of the false name registered in his mind. _ “Oh my god, Liam.” _

“I know. How do I stop recording?”

_ “Leave it in, this is great.” _

Brendan finally figured out how to stop the video right after he said that, letting out a shout of victory. “I got it! And no, that’s a dumbass idea.”

_ “Which is why you’re gonna do it.” _

“Yeah.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Dude, where the hell do you even think of these insane stories?” Brendan said, glancing up from the mini-tablet he was reading, adjusting his glasses with his right hand.

Across the lunch table, Ian was having a mock sword fight with Parker, the seventeen year old using the stick from his eaten corn dog and the fifteen year old using his plastic spoon.

The senior rolled his eyes, not breaking concentration from where he was beating Parker. “How soon did you stop reading this time?” This was his standard question for whenever he first gave something to his friend to read, because Brendan had a tendency to stop in the middle and get distracted.

“I’ll finish it later. I always do,” Brendan dismissed, grabbing an uneaten fry off Parker’s plate and shrugging. “I’m just confused. It seems like you just lumped ideas together.”

“I did,” came Ian’s reply, just as he knocked the spoon out of the sophomore’s hand. “I wanted to write about theatre, but I also wanted to write about CamCloud, but I also wanted to write about people who travel dimensions. And you know I’m bad with decisions, so I combined them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Parker said.

Ian shrugged and opened his bag of chips, not bothering to deny the absurdity of his story or writing methods.

"Are you going to crew today?" Brendan asked, looking at the younger boy and setting the mini-tablet on the table.

“Course,” Parker scoffed, picking at his food. “Anyway, what did Berg want to talk to you about in class today?”

“What about Berg? I wasn’t listening,” Ian interrupted around a mouthful of chips.

Brendan ducked his head and gave an embarrassed grin. “He wanted to know if I wanted to learn lighting design stuff and help design for the after school productions. Cos he doesn’t really have me do much as his aide anyway, so he thought it’d be something for me to do.”

“Wow, congrats, man,” Parker said, before glancing at Ian on his right. Ian’s mouth hung open, eyes wide in shock. “You okay there, Katsaros?”

“Parker, I don’t think you understand,” Ian said, grabbing excitedly at the sophomore’s upper arm and shaking him lightly. “Berg hasn’t let anyone do design for anything in over half a decade. I think it’s been like, what, six years? Not since Andy Snow’s brother fucked up big time on a set because his designs were so shitty. I heard the play was shot to hell because of his constant screwing around. Oh my god, Ben, this is seriously really fucking awesome.”

“And he’s gonna talk to you about it today before crew starts, cos he didn’t get the chance to talk to you during third period,” Brendan said, laughing at his friend’s enthusiasm. “He wants us to learn how to design while we work on the studio, and then you design the fall show and I get the winter one. Then we work together for the musical in the spring.”

“Oh my god, I don’t know how to handle this,” Ian said, standing up and moving as if to leave the table, but only pacing a few steps before returning to his seat. “Anyone else designing?”

“He said he’s asking some other students for the other crews, but I don’t know who they’ll be,” Brendan told him. “He’s only asking seniors that he knows are aiding for him and the other theatre teachers, so they’ll have a free period to work on it since it’s apparently a lot of work. And he said it’s only seniors who have been doing this all four years.”

“So how’s this gonna affect your spots as crew heads?” Parker asked, stealing Ian’s half eaten bag of chips. “Does this mean I can ignore you now while you’re busy with all that hard work?”

“It means we have more power over your sorry ass,” Ian said, taking the bag back. “Or at least, it doesn’t affect the power we already had.”

Brendan chuckled as Parker rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, I’m totally yours and Ben’s bitch,” Parker said, sarcasm heavy.

Ian grinned, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “Atta boy.”

“Anyway,” Brendan began. “I’m supposed to get my design stuff from Ochoa, so I was gonna head to her class early and talk to her a bit beforehand.”

“Later,” Parker said. Brendan started packing up his supplies, handing the mini-tablet back to Ian.

“Later. Ian, I’ll finish reading that when I get home tonight. I’ll see you in calc,” Brendan said.

Ian gave a small wave, still munching on his chips and pulling up a game on his mini-tablet.


	4. Chapter 4

That afternoon, Ian entered the little theatre and headed up to the front row of seats. Brendan was already there sitting with his elbows resting on his knees, talking quietly with Alaska, the girl leaning against the edge of the stage. “Sup, losers?”

“Oh, if it isn’t my darling cousin,” Alaska said in a deadpan. “I’m so thrilled to see him.”

“Don’t get too excited, Alaska dear, I’m just another person like anybody else,” Ian drawled, slinging an arm around her shoulder as Brendan let out a quiet laugh.

“No, you’re a total dork and everyone else is cooler than you,” Alaska replied, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. “Anyway, bout time you got here, we’re about to start.”

“Yeah, guys, you might- you might wanna sit down,” Brendan said, leaning back and shifting to sit cross-legged in his seat. “Ochoa looks ready to talk.”

Ian dropped heavily into the seat next to him, letting out an exaggerated groan. “Oh, Brendan, how I have missed you. Separation truly is torture.”

“Yeah, all of five minutes. Such a… such hardship,” Brendan muttered, shaking his head. He was about to say more when the teachers started calling for their attention.

“Sit down!” Mr. Berg shouted, chuckling as the students new to the theatre department hurriedly rushed to obey. “We’re going to start off today with some safety videos so if one of you gets hurt, we know it’s because of your own stupidity and not our chaperoning skills.” All the students laughed at that, though the newer students sounded uneasy. “But I need to talk to some of our seniors, who I know have seen this video far too many times to need it. I have a list, so shut up and listen in case I call your name.”

“I think it’s about the design thing,” Ian mumbled, head resting on Brendan’s shoulder so he could hear.

“Alright, in no particular order that looks like it’s alphabetical, I need the following nuisances to meet me in the theatre office,” Mr. Berg began. “Eve Byrne, Alaska Fairbairn, Zack Horacek, Ian Katsaros, Ben Kavanagh, Maya Moon, Gavin Pagano, Noah Raske, and Keegan West. Bring your things.”

Ian and Brendan were the first two into the office, heading up the stage right stairs and following Mr. Berg to the door in the stage right wings.

“Hey Berg,” Ian greeted, dropping his bag on the office counter while Brendan set his on the table. The two grabbed the most comfortable spinny chairs as the teacher leaned against the bookshelf, waiting for the other students. “What’s happenin’, teacher-man?”

“Good to see you, too, Katsaros, Kavanagh,” he said with a nod of acknowledgement. “I have your scripts for the year for the two of you, since I know you like planning cues.”

“Sweet,” Ian said, propping his feet on Brendan’s lap.

“Are we- are we here to talk about, um, the, the design thing?” Brendan asked, pushing Ian’s feet back on the floor.

“What design thing?” Eve asked as she breezed into the room, dropping her bag next to Brendan’s and leaning against the counter.

“I’ll tell you in a second, Byrne, hold your horses,” Mr. Berg said as Alaska and Maya walked in.

“What took you, Laska? You were right next to us,” Ian asked.

“Waited for Maya.”

Soon, the rest trickled in and Mr. Berg began.

“So I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about Charlie Snow ruining the design program for the rest of you six years ago due to his screwing around,” he said. They all nodded in agreement. “Well, you’re the lucky ones. Mr. Dufour managed to convince me to give the program another shot.”

At this, all the students snapped their attention into full focus on him, but they all had been working with him in theatre long enough to know not to interrupt.

“With the exception of sound and props, I’ve chosen two designers for each crew,” Mr. Berg continued. “Sound will be just Zack, and props will not have designers. Ms. Ochoa will give you the supplies you need to learn how to design for your particular subject, and you’ll study them as we work on the fall studio. Ian, Noah, Gavin, Maya. You four will work on the fall play. There's not much sound for this show, so Zack, you'll be doing the winter show with Ben, Eve, Alaska, and Keegan. You’ll all be designing the spring musical. Obviously, all designs will be approved by me, but otherwise, you are expected to be independent and responsible. Understood?”

“Why did Ben know about it before us?” Eve asked, crossing her arms and staring expectantly at Brendan, who shrunk away from her gaze and nervously tugged on the sleeve of his hoodie.

“Because he’s my favorite. Now go get your supplies from Ms. Ochoa and then meet up with your crews.”

“I’ll, uh, go straight to the storage room. Because I, I got mine during... lunch,” Brendan mumbled to Ian, as they got up to leave.


	5. Chapter 5

The first official day of crew for the year was that afternoon, and for lights crew, that meant that most of the students who showed up were new to theatre and about half would probably never show up again. That was indeed the case and by the end of that week, Brendan and Ian had a good idea of their crew for the year. Most of the lights crew that had been formed the year before had graduated, leaving only the two crew heads and Parker.

When the safety video ended, Ian and Brendan had been talking in the lights storage room for twenty minutes. The first one in was Parker, who Ian tackled enthusiastically.

"Parker Dunn, my pride and joy, welcome back!" he exclaimed and the sophomore rolled his eyes.

"Get off me, nut case," Parker said, shoving the older boy off and joining Brendan by sitting on the table. "Do you know how many signed up?"

"No clue," Brendan said with a shrug. "Berg gave Ian the list."

Parker was about to reply when the door opened and three students wandered in.

"Are you freshies?" Ian asked, leaning against the effects cabinet and motioning for them to go further into the room. The three nodded and Ian continued. "We're waiting on a few others so we'll hold off on introductions for a bit."

"I'm here!" Atla shouted as she walked in, followed closely by two girls and a guy. "Don't worry!"

"Hey, Atla," Brendan said quietly, pulling his legs up from where they were dangling off the table to sit cross-legged. "Hi, Ivy," he added, waving at the only other person he recognized.

"Hi, Ben," Ivy said, not really paying attention to him. "Ian, when are we gonna start."

"Now, actually," he said. "All seven of you from the list appear to be here."

"Only seven?" Parker said in disbelief. "That means we're gonna be tiny this year."

"Yeah. Alright, listen up, noobs," Ian said loudly, pulling Parker off the table so he could sit next to Brendan. "I'm Ian Katsaros and this is Brendan Kavanagh and we're your crew heads for the year."

Brendan gave a small wave and then ducked his head, picking at a loose thread on his sweatpants.

"Usually we have different crew heads for every show, but me, Ian, and Ben are the only ones with experience in lights this year, and sophomores can only be crew heads if there is absolutely no other choice, so Berg decided that those two will just be crew heads all year," Parker added and Ian nodded.

"But Ian will be, um, stage managing in the... for the winter show," Brendan said. "So Parker might join me as- as crew head."

"If he gets his head out of his ass," Ian tagged on. "By the way, that's Parker Dunn, sophomore. Ben and I are seniors."

"I'm Atla Katsaros, Ian's cousin," she said. "I just moved here. I'm a senior."

"Ivy Byrne, also a senior," Ivy said. "My sister finally convinced me to try theatre."

"Kevin Zdravkov, but everyone calls me Kov. I'm a junior," said the boy closest to the door.

"I'm Veronica Uberti and this is Hope Saller. We're freshman," said the girl standing by the ladder, point at her friend next to her.

"Charlie Erkens, also a freshman."

Every stared expectantly at the last boy in the room, who looked bored.

"Derek Buckley," he said in a low drawl. "Senior."

"Lots of freshman and seniors," Parker said. "Weird."

"Eh," Ian said with a shrug. "Not really. We usually get a lot in certain grades and then barely any in the others."

"In our freshman year, there... there were, um, about eigh- eight sophomores who were- were, um, n-new," Brendan said. "And. And. Um. Just us."

"Okay, seriously. How did Ben end up crew head?" Ivy interrupted, and Brendan froze. Ian rolled his eyes and glared at her.

"He's the most knowledgeable person in this school on the subject of lighting and he interned this past summer at Chicago Spotlight, the supplier we use for all our theatrical lighting at this school," he said, clearly annoyed at the question.

Brendan turned red and ducked his chin as far into his chest as he could, staring into his lap and digging his left hand into his hair.

"It'd be idiotic not for him to be in charge of lights crew," Parker continued. "I mean, yeah, he gets nervous in front of people, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's doing. He gets more confident when he's explaining things or if it's tech week."

"Guys, stop," Brendan protested weakly. "It's fine."

"No," Ian said. "People need to stop questioning you whenever you make a breakthrough in overcoming your anxiety because all it does is make you more nervous."

"Ian. Really. Stop."

"Look, I'm sorry. It's just a little weird cos everyone knows how shy he is, so I was surprised," Ivy said, raising her hands in a placating gesture.

Ian rolled his eyes and Parker looked uneasy, but Brendan nodded, and went back to messing with the loose thread on the bottom of his sweatpants.

"Um," Charlie began, shifting awkwardly at the tension. "What now?"

"Uhh," Ian said looking a little lost.

"Now we give you a tour," Brendan said quietly, not looking up.

"Right, that."

"I'll take, h-half, and you take the other?" Brendan asked and Ian grinned.


	6. Chapter 6

“Fa-ay,” Julia sang as she sat down next to her best friend. “I found new vloggers for us to watch.”

“Oh?” Fay asked, giving the girl next to her an amused look.

“You know that website CamCloud? That everyone’s been using because it’s like a combination of everything?” Julia continued, bouncing in her seat. “And how people mostly use it to post things about their life and video chat sometimes?”

“Yeah, Jules. Seeing as we use it every night to talk, I think I know.”

“You know how it also has that one feature that’s kind of like VidNet that no one’s bothered to use?”

Fay sighed. “Let me guess, someone’s used it?”

“Their names are Liam and Kota, and I think they’re our age.” Julia was beaming and Fay chuckled fondly.

“Usernames?”

“Liam’s is just the word focus, and Kota’s is his name repeated like five times. Hold on, I’ll send you the links,” Julia said as she pulled up the app on her phone. “They don’t have a lot of videos yet, but I find them adorable so I hope they continue. Except they’ve turned off private messaging and they haven’t responded to the comments people have been leaving, so I don’t think they feel like talking to people online.”

Fay laughed. “Really, Julia? You wanted to talk to them?”

“What? They’re cute,” Julia said, glaring defensively.

“I’ll watch them,” Fay said with a laugh. “But I still think you have an unhealthy obsession with vloggers.”

“The only unhealthy thing about it is that I will die if I have to stop watching Jenna Caito. Every other vlogger is just a side interest,” Julia said, face fixed in mock seriousness, before she burst into laughter. “Yeah, I know, Fay, I might have a problem. But at least I’m not stalking them.”


	7. Chapter 7

Brendan had to tell his parents about his CamCloud channel fairly quickly, when they insisted he take his little sister with him when he and Ian rode the train out to Chicago and he had protested because the two had been planning a video for the day. It was embarrassing to know they watched his videos after that conversation, but he knew Ian had it worse. Ian’s two cousins, Alaska, the daughter of his dad’s sister, and Atla, the daughter of his dad’s brother, had walked in on him recording a video and would not stop teasing him. However, he had managed to convince them to join them on the Chicago trip, and so that was the first video Brendan shot outside of his room.

“But why do I have to call you Liam?” Bridget whined, the six year old pouting as he drove to the Hanover Park train station.

Brendan sighed. “I already told you, Birdy, we’re gonna be taking videos all day that will go online, and we don’t want to put our real names on there.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m not comfortable with it, that’s why,” he told her, rolling his eyes.

“I’m not comfortable with the fact that you’re taller than me but I have to deal with it,” she said, as if that was the only thing that mattered.

“Shut up, Birdy, you’re like six.”

“So?”

Brendan let out another sigh and glanced in the rearview mirror. “So, you still have a whole lot of years to grow.”

“So I will be taller than you!” she exclaimed. “Okay, then I guess I can call you Liam.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Is Yan changing his name too?” she asked and Brendan chuckled at the nickname.

“Yeah, we all are. We’re using our middle names, or short versions of our middle names if we don’t like the long ones.”

“Woah, me too?” Bridget asked, eyes wide. “What’s my middle name, again?”

Brendan let out a loud laugh and reached over to ruffle her hair. “It’s Caitlyn, but we can call you Caity or Cait if you want.”

“Woah.”

“What, goof?”

“Caity’s a really cool name. It’s Aunty Caity’s name, and she’s really cool,” she said seriously.

“I know, you were named after her.”

“Then I must be really cool.”

Brendan laughed again as he pulled into the parking lot and looked for his friends.

“Very,” he said, parking close to the building.

“Unlike you,” she added.

“Hey!” he protested, turning to her as she unbuckled and hopped out of the car.

“Yan!” Bridget shouted, racing towards Ian as he got out of Alaska’s car, latching onto his legs.

“Birdy!” he replied, lifting her up with a grin on his face. “Come here you, I’ve missed my favorite Kavanagh.”

“What is this, be mean to Ben day?” Brendan asked, coming up and standing next to Atla, grinning.

"Yes," Ian said.

"Hey, Ben," Atla said with a laugh.

"Oh. Um. Hey, Atla."

"So we're using middle names?" Alaska asked.

"Er, yeah, but Ian and I shortened ours," Ben told her. "He's Kota and I'm, um, Liam."

"And I'm Caity!" Bridget yelled as she wriggled out of Ian's grasp.

Ian laughed and sat down on the curb.

"Do you remember my cousins?" he asked her.

"Nope."

Atla laughed and sat down next to her cousin. "I'm Atla, and she's Alaska. But because we're using different names today, I'm Isi and she's Winona."

"Isi and Winona. Got it," Bridget said with a solemn nod. "I like your names better than Liam."

"Birdy, be nice to your brother," Ian mock-scolded, grinning as Brendan groaned. "Do you remember the name I was using?"

"I wasn't listening."

"His name's Kota," Brendan said.

"Kota," she repeated. "Ben, why don't you have a cool name like the rest of us?"

"Cos you're mean. Come on, we gotta pay for parking and buy our tickets."

They didn't start the videos until they were on the train, where Bridget decided she needed to lecture Brendan on the importance of matching socks as he aimed his camera at her.

"Wow, Caity, this is fascinating," Ian said, reaching across the seats to cover her mouth with his right hand. His left held his own camera, aimed at the others. "Tell me more."

"Be nice, Kota," Atla scolded. "She's excited."

"Can I hold your camera?" Bridget asked, pulling Ian's hand away and reaching out a hand to her brother for the camera.

"S'long as you don't drop it," Brendan said as he handed it to her.

"I'm not gonna, dummy."

"What's the plan for today, anyway?" Alaska interrupted and Brendan shrugged.

"We were thinking we could do the tourist thing. Navy Pier, Sears Tower, the Bean. You know, all that stuff," Ian said, sticking out his tongue when he noticed Bridget had her brother's camera on him.

"And maybe the beach," Brendan added. "But mom said no swimming for me and Caity."

"No," Bridget protested. "Swimming's fun."

"Mom said no."

"Are we gonna shop?" Alaska asked. "Cos I have money."

"Up to you. Isi, did you bring money?" Ian asked. "Cos I know I didn't, but Liam and Caity did."

"How did you know that, Kota?" Bridget asked at the same time that Atla said that she brought money. The six year old got up from her seat and brought the camera close to the seventeen year old's face.

"Cos Liam tells me everything. And can you get that out of my face? Go bother your brother with it."

"Okay!"

"Kota," Brendan protested. "Stop pushing her off onto me. It's not fair."

"How's it not fair?"

"I already have to live with her."

"Liam, you're mean," Bridget said. She pouted when he rolled his eyes and pulled her into his lap.

"How about you bother Winona and Isi instead of me and Kota, since you don't know them as well," he said, resting his chin on her head.

"No, they're cool."

Alaska laughed and gave the younger girl a fist bump. "Smart girl. Kota, can I hold your camera for a bit?"

"Don't drop it," Ian said mockingly as he handed it over, laughing as Brendan swatted him in the head.

"Asshat."

"Stop saying bad words!" Bridget scolded. "I'll tell the parent bots and they'll be mad!"

"They already know I say bad words," Brendan said. "And I'm telling you, they're not robots. They're aliens. We've been over this."

"Did you just call your parents aliens?" Atla asked, eyebrows raised and fighting off a laugh.

"Shhhh," Bridget said, wide-eyed as she gave the camera back to her brother. "It's a gover-ment secret. We're not s'posed to know."

"How do you know they're not alien robots?" Alaska asked, laughing.

"Nona! You promised not to tell!" Ian stage-whispered and Bridget gasped.

"Alien robots? Cool," she whispered in awe and Brendan chuckled.

"So where do you guys want to go first?"

"Navy Pier, before it gets too crowded," Ian said, slumping against Brendan with his head resting against his. "That alright?"

"Sounds good to me," Brendan said. "Wanna stop recording for now to save camera space?"

"On it," Alaska said, shutting off the camera and passing it back to Ian.

"When did you guys get such good cameras?" Atla asked as Brendan shut his off.

"Mine's pretty new," Brendan replied. "I already have a really good camera for just photos, cos I like photography, and I had money saved up for another, but when I started doing these, I decided to get a good video camera instead and wait a bit for the camera I wanted."

"I'm using my mom's old one," Ian said. "She got a new one and gave me this. But this one's still relatively new, so it's not like bad or anything."


	8. Chapter 8

Fay looked up, startled as a very excited Julia sat down next to her at the lunch table. The other girl beamed and held out her phone for Fay to see the screen.

"They made a video replying to comments," Julia said as explanation and Fay laughed.

"I know. I watched it this morning."

"No fair!" Julia pouted. "I was running late and I've had to wait all day."

"Well, not all day," Fay said. "Just all morning."

"Fay," Julia whined. "Shut up."

"Just watch the video already."

"Maybe I will."

* * *

_ "Yoooo, we're in a car." Kota's voice came from behind the camera. He panned the camera all around to show out the windows and then stopped and pointed the camera at Liam, who was driving. "We're going to Six Flags." _

_ "Never go on a car ride with Kota," Liam said, voice dripping annoyance. "Not even if it's just for five minutes. He will annoy the shit out of you. While you're driving because he still hasn't gotten his license because he's a free loading asshole who makes you drive him everywhere." _

_ "But you never say no and this is a way longer drive than five minutes, so clearly it doesn't actually bother you," Kota said with cheer and the boy on camera turned to give him a quick glare before focusing his gaze back on the road. _

_ "Just get to the point of the video, idiot." _

_ "Anyway," Kota said, turning the camera towards himself and rolling his eyes. "We've been getting a lot of questions in the comments, so I thought 'what better way to piss Liam off for an hour than making him answer them?' So yeah." _

_ "None of our videos are longer than ten minutes so you still have fifty minutes unplanned, then," Liam said. "Because I refuse to edit anything longer down to fit." _

_ "We don't have to stop at ten, you know. CamCloud doesn't have a limit, so I can make it as long as I want." _

_ Liam scoffed. "No one has the attention span for that. If you want it longer, you edit it." _

_ "Yeah, fine, whatever," Kota said, pointing the camera back at Liam. "Can we just start?" _

_ "Sure. Oh, are you gonna answer that one rude question that was on your first video?" Liam asked with a laugh. _

_ "What was it again?" _

_ "'Why are you so dark?'" _

_ Kota laughed. "That's racist." _

_ "It's cos he's mainly Native American," Liam said, glancing at the camera for a moment. "Whereas I'm pasty white cos I'm hardcore Irish through and through." _

_ "My dad's mostly Sioux mixed with various other tribes and just enough Greek for it to matter-- and to give us our last name-- while my mom's Scottish," Kota explained. _

_ "'I'm half and half,'" Liam quoted in a thick Irish accent. "'Me dad's a Muggle; Mam's a witch. Bit of a nasty shock for him when he found out.'" _

_ "Yeah, yeah. Show off the accent, why don't you," Kota said. _

_ "You're just jealous. Sides, you can do a Scottish accent when you try, even if it's not as good as your mom's," Liam said, continuing to talk in the accent. _

_ Kota turned the camera back around to his own face. "Liam's from Ireland. Moved here when we were seven and goes back for visits every year." _

_ "Took me years to be able to talk like I was born and raised in Chicago suburbia like Kota," Liam added, not dropping the Irish accent. "And even then that was more of a personal choice." _

_ "Which answers all those questions about where we're from!" _

_ "I think I'm just gonna talk like this all day. Anyway, what else have they asked?" _

_ "Kay. They want to know about Caity, Isi, and Nona." _

_ "Caity's my little sister," Liam said as Kota pointed the camera back at him. "She's six and annoying as hell. Winona and Isi are Kota's cousins. Win's like a month older than Kota and Isi's two months older than me." _

_ "Isi's only a few days younger than me," Kota added. "So Liam's just a young'un." _

_ "Shut up." _

_ "We're seventeen, by the way," Kota said. "The dancing queens." _

_ "Just gimme the next question already." _

_ "They wanna know about the music we have playing in the background of some of our videos." _

_ Liam sighed and ruffled his hair with his left hand. "Uhhhh, lemme think for a sec. I have a weird variety of music, but I know Kota mostly listens to Disney soundtracks on repeat." _

_ "Dude, that's not even remotely true and you know it." _

_ "Yeah, I know. He prides himself on his huge collection of music, so I get most of my music from him. The Disney soundtracks are just for when he's mas--" _

_ "Will you stop making shit up? Anyway, if I hadn't told you about half the bands you like, you'd still be listening to the same four albums that you've had since the beginning of high school," Kota said, scoffing. _

_ "Very true. Although, I've been getting more into music on my own." _

_ "You still stick to what you have, for the most part." _

_ "Whatever," Liam said, shrugging. "Remind me to look through our other videos to see what songs we've used and list them in the description box for this one when we put it up." _

_ "Sure. Want the next question?" _

_ "Shoot." _

_ "I made the rest up myself cos the rest of the questions they asked didn't make sense or were boring--" _

_ Liam cut him off. "I am not answering your dumbass questions." _

_ "What do you think is the weirdest thing that I do?" Kota said, ignoring him. _

_ "There's a lot," Liam said. _

_ "What are some of them?" _

_ "He collects movies where people turn into animals," Liam told the camera. "His favorite is Brother Bear and I've watched it at least three times with him in the past month. He also refuses to sleep with blankets. Ever." _

_ "How is that weird?" _

_ "It just is. What about me?" _

_ "The glasses thing," Kota said. "Definitely the glasses thing." _

_ Liam rolled his eyes. "It's not a thing and it's not weird." _

_ Kota turned the camera back to himself and explained. "He hates glasses, but he's too lazy to wear his contacts to school because it takes him forever to get them in, and by the time he gets home, he sees no point in putting them in--" _

_ "Which there's not." _

_ "Yeah, I guess. But because he hates his glasses so much, he just wanders around his house without them. I've seen him trip over one of his dogs' toys at least once every time I've been over." _

_ "Lies," Liam protested. _

_ "Dude. Don't even try." _

_ "At least I don't drool in my sleep." _

_ "Drooling is perfectly common," Kota said, rolling his eyes. _

_ "So? You wake up covered in drool every morning. It's gross." _

* * *

"Where are you in the video?" Fay asked, grinning when she saw Julia cracking up.

"Oh my god, they're arguing about drooling being weird," she said, pausing the video. "They are such dorks, it's great."

"It gets better," Fay said. "They have Liam's iPod hooked up to the radio and this one song comes on and he just completely cuts Kota off mid-word to sing along. Apparently, the song itself is called Dakota and Kota hates it. Like, more than anything that could ever possibly offend him, so of course Liam has to sing it to him every chance he gets."

"Oh my god."

"Liam sings 'Dakota, I'm in love with you,' and Kota's just like 'shut the fuck up.'"

"That is hilarious," Julia said. "I can't believe he's Irish, by the way. That'll make them even more popular, because you know how stupid American girls get when it comes to boys with accents."

Fay rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like not being American automatically makes them a gentlemen or some stupid shit like that."

"Exactly."


	9. Chapter 9

"Hi, Ben," Ivy said, sitting down sideways in the empty desk in front of him and twisting to talk to him.

"Um," Brendan replied, looking up from his phone wide-eyed. "Hi."

"What's up?"

"I, um, I'm texting Parker," he said, adjusting his glasses with his right hand as he unlocked his phone with his left. To ease his nerves, he opened and closed random apps as he waited for Parker to reply, not actually doing anything.

"That's cool," Ivy said. "What about?"

Brendan turned bright red and ran a hand through his hair. "Uh, he, he was asking about the, um, the... sex... story... tradition. And the um. Whether we had the, uh, cards."

Ivy's brow shot up and she laughed. "Sex story tradition?"

"It's a, um. A light-sound tradition. We, uh, sit around and, um, tell the  w-wildest sex s-story we c-can about two characters and the...person who... laughs the, the most throughout all the... stories, has to buy... dinner."

Ivy stared, mouth parted.

"Yeah," Brendan said with a shrug. "After the, the dr-dress...um, re- rehears...al. Um. Yeah."

"That's actually a tradition?" she asked with an amazed laugh.

"A-Andy Snow and, uh, Conner Davis star- started it."

"That's fantastic."

"Ian u-usually... loses."


	10. Chapter 10

_ "So the main reason that we started doing these videos was because Kota wanted the experience to write a story about vloggers," Liam told the camera. He was on his phone but glancing up to talk. "But the thing is? He's not the best writer." _

_ He held out a placating hand and looked up from his phone again. _

_ "Don't get me wrong, some of his ideas are pure genius. But execution? Not so much." _

_ He shrugged. _

_ "I mean, he has a lot of ideas for really intricate, dark story lines, but he only ever writes his more stupid ideas." _

* * *

Eve paused the video. "Ok, I don't get it. What's the point of this video."

Ivy rolled her eyes and looked at her twin, who was lying on her stomach next to her. She pulled the laptop closer to her and kicked her sister in the leg.

"They're saying what they really think of each other because they decided to do honesty hour videos," she said. "You would get that if you would bother to pay attention."

"I just really don't care about your dumb obsession with videos online," Eve said, resting her head on her forearms. "It seems dumb to me."

Ivy rolled her eyes. "Technically, it's not any different than those reality shows you like. And even then, I have to argue that those are so staged."

"They are not. And your videos are just as fake as you claim the shows I like to be."

"Not vloggers. These are real people choosing to share their real lives for free, so there's no reason to lie."

Eve rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just play the video if you want me to watch it so badly."

* * *

_ The screen had cut to Kota in his room. _

_ "Liam's insanely shy, which may be hard to believe," he said. He was drawing with a sharpie on the pair of beaten up sweatpants he was wearing. "And so I'm really proud of him for doing these videos with me." _

* * *

Eve snorted. "I have to admit, I like how he's being all sweet and the other one's just insulting his writing."

Ivy just laughed and shushed her.

* * *

_ "And I mean, I get that it's hard for him to really talk to people, don't get me wrong," Kota continued. "But sometimes he gets nervous around me, despite the fact that he's been my best friend for like, ever. And I don't blame him, but it's a little frustrating to have him suddenly nervous about asking me what I want for dinner." _

_ He paused in his doodles and gave the camera an exasperated look. "I mean. Dude. Come on. You know I only ever eat White Castle when given the choice. Don't ask if you're just gonna say no. I will live. Don't freak out about it. I will happily eat anything and you know this but you still apologize profusely instead of feeding me." _

_ He paused and laughed. "No, but really. I'm not actually bothered by his social anxiety. I'm willing to do anything to help, and I really am proud of you. _

_ "What really bothers me is actually completely unrelated to that I just had to complain that I went home without White Castle yesterday." _

_ He propped his legs on his desk and leaned back in his chair. _

_ "I get a little annoyed that you record yourself singing and then delete the recordings after a week. I know you end up thinking you messed up or didn't sound good after having them saved on your computer for a bit, but you shouldn't just give up and delete them. You've got to practice to improve. Especially when you're not as bad as you think you are. Really, if you hadn't given up on half your songs and kept working on them, you'd have some really fantastic ones now." _

_ The video switched back to Liam, who was still on his phone. _

_ "I mean, Kota's not a horrible writer, but his humor works better for one-liners and improv," he said. "He's really good at talking about serious subjects in his writing, and you get caught up in the drama easily. _

_ "But he's lazy and doesn't want to put much effort into the plot, so he just throws it all together without thinking about it and tries to be funny without context." _

* * *

"Have you noticed that they look a bit like Ian and Ben?" Eve asked suddenly, head tilted in curiosity and resting on her left palm. 

"What?" Ivy asked as she broke her attention away from the video.

"Ian and Ben, from theatre. Don't they kinda look like them?"

Ivy stared in a random direction, contemplating. Finally, she nodded. "Yeah. But Ian cares about his appearance way more than Kota. Kota just kind of throws on whatever and a hat to make a video, but Ian is always in nice jeans and a button-up. Plus you can tell he styles his hair a bit, so he wouldn't mess it up with a beanie just for a video."

"What about Liam? You've seen way more videos than me so you'd have a better idea," Eve said.

Ivy shrugged. "Ben always looks like he was scared out of bed and his only defense against having a panic attack over being out of the house is that baggy, old hoodie he's always wearing, while Liam actually remembers to make sure his hair at least looks decent and wears a lot of t-shirts and plaid. And this one thick vest that he wears every so often."

"Plus, Kota has glasses and Liam doesn't, but with Ian and Ben, Ben's the one with glasses."

"Well, we can't know for sure on that one," Ivy said. "Because Ian could wear contacts, so we don't know, and they said in a different video that Liam wears glasses to school because he's too lazy to put his contacts in every morning, but he doesn't like wearing his glasses at home so he just kind of does everything without them."

"He walks around without his glasses?"

"Yeah. Apparently he trips a lot."

Eve snorted. "Well duh."

"I know," Ivy said with a laugh. "These two are so ridiculous that it's hard to believe that they actually do the things they do, but at the same time it totally fits their personalities."

"Is that why you like them?"

"Yeah."

Eve let out a reluctant sigh. "I mean, I guess I wouldn't mind watching more of them with you if you offered."

"It's such a hardship, I know."


	11. Chapter 11

Ian sat with his right leg hugged to his chest and his left leg sideways with the foot hooked behind the ankle of his right, leaning back in the computer chair he used during tech week. His headset was around his neck and he watched, bored, as he waited for them to get through the cue-writing for the second half of the show. With his half already finished, he was only needed if they needed him to act as runner. Brendan was next to him, headset on and programming cues into the light board.

"Hey, Ben?" he said, staring at him. Brendan raised an eyebrow at him in curiosity and motioned for him to go on even as he responded to someone in the headset. "How much longer, do you think?"

"I think we're gonna be here for a while," Brendan said. "Why?"

Ian groaned. "I'm tired. I stayed up late yesterday because of homework and only got an hour of sleep."

"Do you not want to hang out tonight so you can sleep?"

"Nooo," he said. "Cos I like when we hang out. I just wanna cuddle."

Brendan laughed lightly. "It's Saturday, we can just have a sleepover and push all our plans off til tomorrow."

"I wanna cuddle now," he whined. "Ben," he whined again. "Ben, stop. Don't ignore me. Pay attention to me. I'm more important than the people on headset."

"Shut up and nap, Yan. Berg says we'll be done in half an hour."

"Kay."


	12. Chapter 12

"I miss Kaz and Ky," Parker said as he sat down to the lunch table.

"Yeah, I kinda do too," Ian said with a shrug as he picked up his pizza. "Not so much the others."

Brendan nodded. "Especially Max and Gia. They were horrible."

"Kev and Jason weren't too bad," Parker said and the other two boys shrugged in response. "But I kinda miss them all."

"That's probably cos they were your first lights seniors from your freshman year. They're the seniors who got you hooked, so you grew attached," Brendan said, opening up his bag of chips.

"So you miss your seniors the most?" Parker asked, skeptical.

"God no, you know this," Ian said. "Our seniors freshman year were fucking horrible. The only decent ones where Mran and Bri."

"Who?"

"Miranda Collins and Bri Ashe," Brendan said. "But we were closest with the juniors that year."

"Andy and Conner, right?" Parker asked.

"Antreas Snow and Conner Davis were the bomb dot com and I miss them like crazy," Ian interrupted.

"Conner's your neighbor," Brendan said, rolling his eyes. "And he's not even off at a fancy college cos he goes to COD and lives at home, so you see him all the time."

"Ah yes, COD. Call-ege of Duty, College of Dreams, College of Dupage," Ian said mockingly.

"But wasn't Andy a sound kid?" Parker asked, ignoring Ian.

Ian waved his pizza dismissively. "He was an honorary lights kid because they were inseparable. He helped lights a lot and Conner did a lot of sound stuff, too."

"Yeah," Brendan said. "They were from the era where lights and sound were tight, but Patrick and Zack decided to bring back the rivalry."

"Oh my fuck, Trick was such an asshole," Ian muttered, and Parker made a noise in agreement.

"He yelled at me for messing up his sound equipment when I did nothing," he said. "He was kind of a lunatic. But I haven't worked with Zack too much, so I don't know him very well."

"Zack's not too bad, but he avoids us cos he thinks we're insane," Brendan said.

"We kind of are," Ian added.

"Hey guys," Ivy said. The three boys went silent and stared at the girl at the edge of the table. "Can I sit here?"

"Sure, I guess," Ian said with a shrug.

Brendan stared down at his plate, picking at his fries and glancing nervously at Ivy.

"What were you guys talking about?" Ivy asked as she sat down next Ian.

Ian gave the two boys sitting across from him an awkward look. "We were just shit talking old lights crew people we knew."

"Oh, sounds fun."

Ian shrugged.

"So..." she drawled, sensing the awkward tension.

"What did you guys do over the weekend?" Parker finally said.

"You mean apart from the light-sound preview?" Ian asked with a laugh.

"I-Ian slept over on, um, Saturday n-night," Brendan said, still picking nervously at his food. "We- um, we h-had a, uh, movie... mara...thon."

"John Hughes movies, to be specific," Ian added. "Because why not."

"What about you, Parker?" Ivy asked.

"Practiced with my band," he said. "Our bassist quit and we have to catch our new one up to speed."

"Oh, sounds like a lot of work."

Parker shrugged. "Kind of. What about you?"

"I marathoned a bunch of videos online," she said. "I like watching people on VidNet and CamCloud and all that."

"That's cool," Parker said. "I watch some people a bit, too. Who do you watch?"

"Mostly the popular VidNet crowd, but I've been getting into these guys on CamCloud recently, and they're pretty cool."

"What are their names?"

Ivy grinned. "Liam and Kota. They're these really weird guys who compete to see who can post most consistently between the two of them."

Brendan went wide eyed as he stared down at his plate and Ian hid a grin.

"I'll check them out," Parker said, and Ian forced back a laugh.

"What about you two?" Ivy asked. "You watch any vloggers?"

Brendan shrugged. "A-a little."

"I do, but not religiously or anything," Ian said. "I'm usually messing around on gaming websites and Ben does a lot of creative stuff in his free time instead of wasting his life away on the internet."

"A teenager who doesn't live on the internet?" Parker joked. "He'll be the only sane one."

"I-I thought I a-already... was," Brendan mumbled, smirking slightly as he looked at the younger boy.

Parker let out a loud laugh and nudged him in the shoulder. "Ian's rubbing off on me."

"Hey! I am perfectly sane," Ian protested. The other two boys laughed at him and Ivy grinned.


	13. Chapter 13

Ian turned on his camera and sprawled out in his computer chair like usual, once again dressed in his pyjamas. His beanie was pulled down to keep his ears warm, his father having once again set the air conditioning to an abnormally cold setting for October.

"Hey weirdos," he greeted. "A lot of you guys have been asking about Liam and I doing a live stream sometime."

He paused and glared at the camera.

"Many of you are getting pretty damn rude about it, too."

With that, he rolled his eyes and shifted to lean back a bit more in his chair. The annoyance was clear on his face. "We don't want to do a live stream. I've mentioned that a bit in past videos, I think, so I don't quite get why none of you seem to remember that."

He broke off as his phone buzzed with a text message from Brendan.

"Hold on, let me answer this."

_ Can I come over?  _ Brendan had sent.

He texted back a quick affirmative and set his phone back down after the short conversation that followed.

"Anyway, neither of us are comfortable with recording ourselves live. So quit asking."

After he got that message out of the way, he went on to talk about lighter subjects, rambling a bit.

He was in the middle of uploading the finished, edited version of the video when Brendan walked in.

"Heya," he called out when he heard the door open.

"Sup, man?" Brendan said.

"Vloggin'."

"Lame."

"Watcha wanna do?" Ian asked, spinning his computer chair around to look at him.

"I dunno. I was restless and wanted out of the house," Brendan replied with a shrug. "What were you planning on doing?"

"I was gonna work on my Halloween costume, actually," Ian said, getting up and grabbing the supplies for his costume off the top of his dresser. "That cool with you?"

Brendan nodded. "Have you been keeping up with Andy about the info for Halloween?"

"Yeah. Time and place hasn't changed, but he says Ky's other plans have changed, so he'll be able to make it after all," Ian said. "Jason's still going, but Max and Gia aren't. He and Conner invited a few of their non-lights friends, and he said Bri and Mran might even show."

"No way, really?" Brendan asked, shocked and excited. "We haven't seen them in ages."

Ian chuckled. "Yeah, but they might bring some non-lights friends as well."

"That's fine. Did he say if it was cool if we bring Parker?"

"He said it was a-okay," Ian said.

"Sweet."

"I know."


	14. Chapter 14

_ "Do you not want me on camera?" Kota's voice was saying. The camera was moving around, the person holding it not bothering to keep it steady as they walked. "Liam, why don't you want my beautiful face on camera?" _

_ "I'm walking, shit head. I don't want to have to steady it," Liam's voice came from above the camera. "You're lucky I even turned it on." _

_ "It's on? My voice is being recorded?" _

_ "Yes. Dumb ass." _

_ "Hi, camera!" Kota called out. "Sorry you can't see me, Liam's being a butt." _

_ "Oh my god, shut up," Liam said. _

_ He moved the camera and held it so it was pointed at Kota, though it was still shaky. "Happy now?" _

_ "Very." Kota was dressed in his completed Halloween costume and walking backwards to talk to the other boy. _

_ "We're headed over to this field by one of our friend's house right now," Liam said from behind the camera. _

_ "Yep, cos every Halloween he gets a bunch of us together and we play soccer in full costume instead of trick or treating," Kota added. "If you were wondering, by the way, I'm going as Sokka from Avatar: The Last Airbender and Liam's Zuko." _

_ "Sadly, he's not even trying to be in character," Liam said, turning the camera to his own face. "He's just naturally this idiotic." _

_ "And you're just naturally a buzzkill," Kota shot back. _

_ "You love me for it so shut up." _

_ "No." _

_ "Has he told you the teams yet?" Liam asked, turning the camera back to Kota, who lifted his right hand to wave vaguely. _

_ "All I know is he's refusing to put me on a team with you again, because apparently that gives us an unfair advantage." _

_ Liam laughed. "We're the only ones of everyone he invites who have ever played it in a league. What did he expect?" _

_ "He probably thought we were out of practice or something," Kota said with a shrug. "I mean, you stopped after freshman year and I stopped when we became juniors. It's not like we still practice all day everyday." _

_ "And let ourselves miss out on the look on his face when we beat him?" Liam asked sarcastically. "Never." _

_ Kota laughed. "Oh yeah, we can't have that. Do you know where we're eating after the game? _

_ "I was told either Taco Bell or McDo's," Liam said. _

_ "I hope it's Taco Bell. McDonald's gets kind of old after a while." _

_ "Just kind of?" _

_ "Well, I mean, compared to White Castle, it just can't win," Kota said, before pointing matter-of-factly at the camera. "I vote White Castle." _

_ "You always vote White Castle." _


	15. Chapter 15

“Nick, I’m bored,” Colin said, climbing onto the red haired boy’s lap. “Entertain me. Tell me that one story about that elf Zelda who wears green a lot.”

Nick scowled and shoved Colin’s shoulder. The other boy just grinned and leaned back into Nick’s personal space to bury his face against Nick’s collarbone.

“You’re a fucking dumbass,” Nick mumbled into Colin’s hair, trying not to laugh at his antics. “You know damn well how wrong your last sentence was.”

“Yeah, but you love me,” Colin said with a laugh, not moving from Nick’s lap.

“You guys are worse than Ian and Ben,” Parker said, looking up from his book. “Stop being cute.”

Miranda laughed and sat down next Colin and Nick on the couch. “You don’t have to deal with them daily like I do. They’re disgusting.”

“You don’t have to deal with Ian and Ben daily,” Parker said.

“Point.”

“What’s this about dealing with us daily?” Ian asked as he came in carrying a pack of water, with Ben, Conner, and Andy trailing behind carrying pizza.

“Apparently you two are disgustingly cute and we’re worse than you are,” Nick said, laughing when he noticed Ben blush.

“What?” Conner said. “Aren’t we cute too?”

Andy laughed. “I think they’ve just gotten used to us.”

“If by that he means we’ve gotten used to ignoring them, then yeah,” Ben muttered to Ian, causing him to snort out a laugh.

“Spot on assessment, my good man,” Ky said, patting Andy’s shoulder as he entered the living room from the bathroom.


	16. Chapter 16

"Well, I mean, we can still video chat," Fay said.

Julia buried her head in her arms and groaned. "But I don't want to move to Illinois. It's just more farm land. At least here in Lincoln, we have the city to save us."

"Not all of Illinois is farmland. What part were you moving to again?" Nicole asked.

Julia turned her head to stare blankly at the girl who sat at her lunch table everyday but barely talked to her outside of school. "Carol Stream. Dad says it's a suburb of Chicago."

"Oh, yeah. I have some cousins from there. You might go to their high school, but Lee and Randy graduated already. Ben is our age, though," Nicole said. "It's nowhere near any farmland and it's about an hour from Chicago, so it's not too bad." 


	17. Chapter 17

_ Omfg,  _ Julia texted to Fay.  _ There's this guy who sits in front of me in my lit class who looks almost EXACTLY LIKE LIAM WITH GLASSES. Except he stutters a lot and keeps his head down like all the time. _

_ Omg, keep a look out for a Kota look-alike,  _ Fay replied.  _ That would be too funny. _

_ There's a possible one in my physics class,  _ Julia told her. _ But it's hard to tell cos he doesn't have the beanie or glasses. He's got the personality tho. _

_ What class are you in now?  _ Fay asked.

_ Intro to theatre's about to start. Omg the Kota lookalike is in this class, _ Julia replied.  _ But class is seriously about to start so I've gotta go. _

_ Later. _

"Hey. Julia, right?" Julia jumped as the boy she had been texting about came up to her.

She nodded, slightly stuttering out a small "Yeah."

"I'm Ian, Berg's student aide," he said with a grin, handing her a small stack of papers. "He said to give you these. They're just a few short readings that he said you'll need to get caught up. He said to tell you to take as long as you need to read them."

"Thanks."

"You just moved here, right?" he asked.

"Yeah. First day," she said. "I think we have first period together."

"Oh, we do? Cool. You thinking of doing theatre?" he asked before shifting awkwardly. "I mean, you're in this class, but I didn't know if that was cos you like theatre or if it was just to fill your speech requirement or something."

Julia laughed. "I don't know. I didn't do a lot of clubs before I moved. I mostly did art club, but that's it. Is it fun?"

"Yeah, definitely," he said. "I mean, it's work, but it's great. We've already done our fall studio this year, and the fall main stage is open this week, so you wouldn't have to wait too long for the winter main stage, if you decided to do it."

"Oh, that's cool. I might audition, but it might be cool to try the backstage stuff," she told him. "What do you usually do in theatre?"

Ian grinned. "I'm stage managing for the winter show, but for all the other shows this year, I'm one of the co-designers-slash-crew-heads for lights. I got to design the lighting for the fall main stage. It's great."

"That sounds really cool. If you're stage managing for the next one, though, who's going to design the lights for it?"

"Brendan Kavanagh. Well, he goes by Ben, really. He's the other designer-crew-head-person," he said. "He's the best. He and I have done every single crew at least once, but lights is what we started with, so we're ending with it."

"That's cool. What other crews are there?"

He shrugged. "There's scenery and sound, and then props, publicity, and costumes are just one big crew that we lump together. Sound works with lights a lot, and scenery sometimes does, so I know more about the people in those crews, but we don't deal with PPC a lot, and it's been a while since I was in it, so I can't tell you about any of the cool people from there.

Julia laughed. "That's fine. Thanks for trying, I guess?"

"But yeah, join theatre," he said, laughing. "Anyway, class started a few seconds ago, so I'll shut up now. See ya."

"Bye." 


	18. Chapter 18

Eve sprawled out in her sister's bed and watched as Ivy spun in her computer chair to face her.

"I still don't get why you like Brendan," she said and Ivy shrugged. "He's just always stuttering. He's like a constant ball of nerves. It gets old after less than a minute."

"I dunno. He's pretty mellow once you've known him a bit," Ivy said. "He's just painfully shy."

Eve sighed in annoyance. "But I mean, I could even see you liking Katsaros, and he's the most annoying thing to ever walk the earth. But, Ben Kavanagh? Really?"


	19. Chapter 19

"Eve is a nightmare," Brendan said, face buried in his pillow. Ian laughed from the desk. They were in Brendan's room. Ian was sitting backwards in the computer chair, leaning forward onto the back of it. Brendan was sprawled on his bed, hands tugging at his hair. "All she ever does is question me like she has any idea what I'm even fucking talking about when we share designs. She's never once done lights." 

"What is there to even question then?" Ian asked. "It's not like she can give input with no experience."

Brendan rolled onto his back and started making air quotes as he spoke, voice pitched to mock the subject of his complaints. "'It doesn't look like you have this area lit properly' and 'Why do we even need this light?' and all that shit."

"Start questioning her designs," Ian suggested, half joking. "See how she likes it."

Brendan laughed. "Yeah. I can see it now. 'Why is everyone wearing pants? Why not kilts?'"

"Seriously, man, you should do it," Ian said. "Or I'll do it. I don't care who says it, I just want to see the look on her face."

"She'd kill me, no matter who says it. She hates me."

"Why?"

"No clue."

They were silent for a moment before Ian spoke.

"Well, tech week's gonna suck."

"What?" Brendan asked, sitting up to prop himself up on his elbows. "Why?"

"You know how Madeline got sick and couldn't stage manage with me and Stella?"

"Yeah?"

Ian sighed. "Unfortunately, Dufour wants Eve on headset for the right wing, since we need someone to take Mad's place during tech."

Brendan rolled back onto his stomach and groaned into his pillow once more.

"But on the bright side, I'm calling the whole show, so we get to party in the booth."

Brendan laughed, resting his head on his arms and turning his head to look at the other boy. "Are you excited to call it?"

"Fuck yes," Ian exclaimed. "I get to make y'all my bitches."

"Never say that again. You sound stupid."

"But anyway, I was talking with Dufour about calling the show, and he said he prefers having two people call the show--"

"Even though Berg and Ochoa think that's stupid and it should only be one?" Brendan interrupted, shifting to sit cross-legged on his bed, leaning against the wall his bed was pressed up against.

"Yeah. Anyway, Stella's already called a show before and hated it, and obviously Madeline can't. So..." Ian trailed off, smirking.

"So?"

"So he said if you wanted, we could each do half the show. You and me."

Brendan gaped at him. "No way."

"Yes way."

"I could call a show if I wanted to."

Ian grinned. "Yes."

"Without stage managing."

"Do you want to?"

"Fuck yes!" Brendan said, laughing. "What do you take me for?"


	20. Chapter 20

_ “Why is Kota always at your house?” Winona was sitting at her uncle’s kitchen table and looking at the camera that Liam had set on the counter, before she turned to look at the Irish boy on the other side of the kitchen. “Even when you’re not?” _

_ “Because my parents like him better,” Liam said as he moved to dig through the fridge. He pulled out a pack of cheese and turned to the breadbox on the counter. “I was gonna make a grilled cheese, do you want one?” _

_ “And why are you here?” _

_ “I could say the same to you.” _

_ Winona rolled her eyes. “This is my uncle’s house. I can come over anytime I want.” _

_ Liam spun around to face her and pointed the pan at her. “Excuse you, there are more pictures of me in this house than you.” _

_ “Because they’re pictures of Kota and you happen to be in them.” _

_ “No, actually,” Atla said as she entered the kitchen. “Auntie Janet said one time Kota hung up a bunch of pictures of Liam around the house and they just kind of kept it up.” _

_ “Kota adds another one like every few months,” Liam said. “They don’t even care at this point.” _

_ “No, but seriously, why isn’t Kota here?” Atla asked. _

_ “Caity wanted to spend the day with him for some reason,” Liam said. “And I was kicked out so I came here.” _

_ “Why’d you get kicked out?” _

_ “Because Caity’s six and what she says goes.” _


	21. Chapter 21

“You know, the Sioux part of my family actually called me Dakota for a while,” Ian said, leaning back against the railing behind him and flashed Brendan a lazy grin. “Because to them, the only reason my first name is Ian is to appease my mother, which, in truth, is actually a total crock of bull. I put a stop to it in like eighth grade, though, because the name pissed me off, but they still use it from time to time, even without these videos in the occasion.”

“That why Atla and Lask never get mixed up when we film around them?” Brendan asked.

“I dunno, probably.”

“Wasn’t your dad the one who wanted to name you Ian?”

Ian shrugged. “All I know is mom fought long and hard to convince him to let me have Dakota in my name in some form or another.”

“And here you are,” Brendan said, laughing. “Hating it with a passion, but using it to your advantage.”

“I’m warming up to it,” Ian said. “I’ve been considering using it in college.”

“Cool.”

The two were silent for a while, watching other people as they waited in line for their turn on the ride. They made up stories for people they found interesting, laughing at how ridiculous they could get.

“My dad was named Liam,” Brendan finally said after another short burst of silence. “But mom says he hated the idea of passing down names, because he thought it made it harder for someone to figure out who they were, rather than be who everyone else expected them to be.”

“But she wanted to name you after him in some way after he died?”

“Yeah.”


	22. Chapter 22

“Um…” Brendan said, staring up at the ceiling. “I think the weirdest thing Ian has said to me…”

“Yeah?” Ivy said, grinning and sitting backwards in her computer chair. She rested her head on her arms, leaning on the backrest and waiting for him to continue.

“He… he called me Benjamin, once.”

Ivy laughed. “How’s that weird? Wasn’t he just saying your full first name?”

“My full first name is Brendan,” he said, grinning when she snorted and started giggling.

“Why?”

“I have no idea.”

Ivy tried to calm down her laughter and only half succeeded. “Once, he called me Glaceon.”

“Oh, that’s not weird,” Brendan said, completely serious. “We call you and your sister Glaceon and Flareon all the time.”

“What? Why?”

“Eve and Ivy,” he explained as if it was the most logical conclusion. “If you mush them together, you get Eevee, like the Pokemon.”

“Oh my god.”

“And Glaceon and Flareon are two eeveelutions, so it only makes sense.”


	23. Chapter 23

“I fucking hate this house,” Ian muttered. “I just want out.”

Brendan shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, I mean, soon we’ll be headed off to college. And for now, there’s always my house.”

“Yeah,” he said, laying back on his bed, rubbing his eyes with his left hand, pulling Brendan down next to him with his right. “Do you know what I think about a lot when I’m alone? I wonder how I would’ve reacted when I was younger to being told this is how my life was going to be.”

“And that probably doesn’t help,” Brendan said.

“No. No, it really doesn’t.”

“Has it gotten bad?”

“It’s the same as before, but a guy can only last so long, you know?” Ian said, laughing bitterly. “Why can’t they just admit they don’t love each other anymore?”

“Probably the same reason they fought on your name for the entire pregnancy,” Brendan suggested. “They love their in-laws more than they love their own family.”

“They love anything more than each other.”

“Probably why they love you so much.”

Ian grinned, rolling to swing an arm across Brendan chest, burying his face into his neck. “But still not more than you love me, right?”

Brendan chuckled, ruffling the other boy’s hair. “Yeah, sure.”

“No, but, really,” Ian mumbled into his friend’s skin. “They don’t even talk anymore. I’m just like their messenger.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ian sighed, rolling off Brendan and onto his back. He shut his eyes and groaned.

“Sometimes I try to imagine reasons for why I’m so nervous around people,” Brendan admitted. “They’re never good.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. A common one is thinking that the reason that my mom divorced that guy, Sean, you know, the first guy she married after my dad? Sometimes I wonder if he did something that I’m still affected by, and that’s why she left him.”

“Ben, no,” Ian protested. “Sometimes people get stuck with shitty things like anxiety for no reason. It doesn’t make you any less normal.”

“Yeah, I know,” Brendan said with a bitter laugh. “But tell that to my brain.”

“Seriously, whenever you start thinking that, just talk it out with me.”

“Alright.”


	24. Chapter 24

Brendan groaned into his pillow and buried his hands in his hair. The clock read two in the morning and the room was dark. He rolled onto his back and rubbed at his eyes. The clock had changed to two oh one.

He grabbed his phone, flinching at the bright light as it lit up in the dark room. Exiting apps he had no use for, he opened up his contact list and scrolled to the name he was looking for.

_ “Brendan?”  _ she asked when she picked up.  _ “What’s going on? Why are you calling at two am?” _

“Hey, Miranda,” he said quietly, rolling off the bed in the exact opposite of a graceful manner. He sat cross-legged, back leaning against the side of the bed. “I assumed you’re still awake since it’s Friday night.”

_ “Well, technically, it’s a Saturday morning,”  _ she said, almost laughing.  _ “What do ya need?” _

Brendan sighed, staring up at the ceiling. All he saw was a blur, since his glasses were off and the room was only dimly lit by the numbers on his alarm clock. “Have you been on CamCloud lately?”

_ “I have no idea what that is.” _

“Are you within easy reach of internet?”

She laughed.  _ “Gimme a sec and I’ll use my roommate’s laptop.” _

He waited patiently, gaze unfocused on random things in his room.

_ “Okay, what was the thing you said? _

“Go to the website CameraCloud and look up the user ‘focus,’” he said. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back as he waited for her.

_ “Is that you?” _

“Surprisingly, yeah.”

_ “Wow, good job,” she said. “You look pretty popular.” _

“Even more surprisingly, yeah.”

_ “So, why are you making sure I know about your newfound internet success?”  _ she asked.

He sighed. “My classmates are idiotic and have no idea it’s me.”

She was silent for a moment.  _ “So… Like… Hannah Montana?” _

He chuckled. “Yeah. And Ian’s got an account, too, and they don’t know it’s him either.”

_ “Wow, we must come from a land of dumbasses.” _

“The worst part is a lot of them are fans,” he said. “And it terrifies me, Mran. I don’t know what to do.”

_ “About?” _

He covered his face with his left hand. “I need to tell them. I need to, I will drive myself crazy with guilt and fear if I don’t. But they’ll hate me, or they won’t believe me, or they’ll-- they’ll-”

He broke off, breathing heavily, pulling his legs to his chest and resting his forehead on his knees.

_ “Breathe, Brendan,” _ she said.  _ “Just breathe and continue. They’ll what?” _

“No matter how they react, people will be talking to me and- and looking at me and there’ll just be so many people and I can’t-- I can’t-- Miranda, I can’t handle that. I can’t.”

_ “What is it about making vlogs that’s different,”  _ she asked.

“I can’t see their reactions,” he said. “It’s detached. And when I do see their reactions, it’s with comments or videos, and I don’t need to respond.”

_ “But why do you need to respond in real life?” _

“I- what?”

_ “You said vlogs are easier than real life because you don’t need to respond to people,”  _ she said.  _ “But who said you need to respond in real life?” _

Brendan sat there, wide eyed and struggling for a response.

_ “If you can’t handle what someone is saying, walk away,”  _ she said.  _ “It’s just like something that’s physically dangerous. Is a bomb about to go off? You get away from that bomb.” _

“I-- Miranda--”

_ “Brendan, seriously. I know it’s hard to walk away in these kinds of situations. People could get mad, or it might be against a rule, or something. But you have social anxiety. This is a serious problem, and one that society doesn’t often acknowledge.” _

“I know,” he said, wiping at his eyes.

_ “And it’s bull fucking shit that it’s not seen as the problem it is, but you have medicine, and you have friends, and you- I mean, for God’s sake, you willingly put yourself out there on the internet just for the hell of it, and kept it up, and became  _ successful _ with it,” she continued. “Brendan-- Ben, are you listening to me? That is just utterly amazing. You’re helping yourself all on your own, without even doing it on purpose. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m not sure I’m making sense.” _

“Yeah.”

_ “Good. And yeah, society frowns on things like leaving a stressful conversation, or a situation that’s causing you to be at risk of a panic attack. But that’s because they don’t understand. But who cares? Just because they don’t understand, doesn’t mean you can’t do something to ease your mental health. I don’t understand half the medical things that diabetics have to do, but they’re still justified to do all that.” _

Brendan choked out a laugh, sounding a little strained as he tried not to cry. “Doesn’t your uncle have diabetes?”

_ “And I have no idea what it is that he’s supposed to be doing with it.” _

“Gotcha.”

_ “You don’t have to listen to people if they give you shit over this,”  _ she said.  _ “It’s your channel, and your life. It’s none of their god damned business what you do with it.” _

“Okay,” he said.

_ “Don’t you just ‘okay’ me, Brendan William Kavanagh. I’m right and you know it.” _

He chuckled. “Yeah, I know, Mran. That’s why I called you.”

_ “Good. Now, on a more important note,”  _ she said with a huff.  _ “Why haven’t you been texting me lately?” _

“Miranda, you’re a junior in college. Do you really care if a high school senior is texting you?”

_ “Fucking yeah, I do. You and Ian are my last high school lights babies. All the others have graduated, and you two are next. I’m not just gonna let you get away from keeping me updated that easily.” _

They both laughed.

“I’ve missed you,” he said quietly. “Lights is so different.”

_ “Oh, you’re telling me? I went to crew the other day and Berg was nowhere to be found,”  _ she joked.  _ “So weird.” _

“As much as I love being top dog, I miss following you around like a lost puppy.”

She scoffed.  _ “Brendan, you’re always a lost puppy. And Ian even more so, which is why I don’t understand how either of you can get anything done without me.” _

“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “How’s college?”

_ “PHYSICS!”  _ she shouted, and he heard someone in the background speak as he flinched away from the phone.  _ “I just woke up my roommate. She was like ‘Oh my god, Miranda, shut the fuck up. No one cares about physics.’” _

“Joke’s on her, then,” he said. “Her body seems to care a lot about it, what with gravity and all those other laws.”

Miranda laughed triumphantly and repeated what he said to her roommate, and he heard a thump.

_ “She threw a pillow at me.” _

“Go to sleep, then. I should probably sleep, too,” he said.

_ “Alright. Night, puppy.” _

“Night, nerd.”


	25. Chapter 25

“Ben?” Ian asked, coming to crouch next to the wide eyed boy who sat on the ground, leaned up against the stack of rehearsal blocks on the stage right wing and staring in shock. "What's up? You okay?"

"I..." Brendan said, running a hand through his hair and still blinking in shock as he tried to string together a coherent sentence. "Um, Ivy.... kissed me?"

"Oh. Yeah?" Ian said, raising an eyebrow and flashing an amused grin as he sat down next to the Irish boy.

"Yeah."

"What did you tell her?"

Brendan shrugged and picked at a loose string on his sweatpants. "The truth."

"And how'd she take it?" Ian asked, leaning on his knees and resting his head on his folded arms, head tilted to the right to look at Brendan.

"Really well, actually," he said. "Apologized for kissing me out of the blue like that, said she understands, and wants to stay friends."

"That's good," Ian said. Then he let out a laugh. "Was she any good?"

"What?" Brendan asked, giving him a confused look.

"The kiss," Ian clarified. "Was she any good?"

Brendan shrugged, smirking. "I've had worse."

"Oh, it is on, jackass," Ian said with a laugh. "I know I'm the only one you've kissed and I know I'm good, so you're just trying to make me jealous."

"And it's working," Brendan said, still smirking.

"Shut up, it is not."

Brendan laughed at Ian's insistence and pulled him in for a quick kiss, clutching at his hair with his left hand.

"See?" Ian mumbled against his lips when they paused for air. "I'm the best you'll ever have."

The other boy laughed and shoved him lightly on the chest. "Yeah, right. You're only good because I helped you improve."

Ian leaned in for another kiss, chuckling, and when the two broke apart for the second time, they finally realized they had an audience. A good half of scenery crew were staring at them in shock.

"What?" Ian said, wrapping an arm around Brendan as he flushed dark red and ducked his head down to avoid eye contact.

"You guys are dating?" Gavin asked, incredulous but not disgusted.

"You didn't know?" Ian asked, genuinely confused. "I mean, we have been since sophomore year and we don't exactly hide it."

"Wait, sophomore year?" Gavin said, eyes widening. "That's longer than me and Noah!"

"You seriously didn't know? I'm always hanging on him and stuff."

"Dude, no one knows! We just thought you didn't care about personal space."

"W-well, I- I mean... he... he do- doesn't," Brendan said softly and Ian ruffled his hair with a chuckle. "He- he just also, um, also h-happens to, ah, um, pre- prefer... m-my p-p-personal sp...ace in, uh, in par...ticu-- lar."


	26. Chapter 26

“Hey, I-Ivy,” Brendan said as he passed her, dropping his backpack off by the equipment graveyard in the back of the lights storage room.

She glanced up from her phone, sitting on the table. “Oh, hey, Ben. No one else is here yet.”

“What’s, um. What are you up to?” he asked, grabbing his time card from the clipboard hanging behind her.

“I’m watching those two CamCorders I like. Want to watch with me?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I’ve gotta, um, gotta go… clock in.”

“I meant after you did that,” she said, grinning.

“No,” he repeated. “That’d be a little, a little nar- narcissistic, don’t- don’t y-you think?”

She gave him a confused look. “What?”

“Watching my o-own videos? Kind of, um, vain. Only I-ian does that,” he said, shrugging as if it was obvious.

“I-” she cut off, startled. “Your videos?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I-I don’t like using my- my real name on the, uh, the internet, so I go by my... middle name.”

She stared at him. “Are you fucking with me?”

“You didn’t know?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“All this time,” she began, getting up off the table to stand face to face with him, staring him in the eye. “All this time, I’ve been watching your videos, and I didn’t know it was you?”

“Ivy,” he said, forgetting his usual nerves around her in his confusion over why she was so surprised. “You’ve been to my house. You’ve probably also seen it a thousand times in those videos, too. It’s not that hard to realize they’re the same house when there’s so many damn chihuahuas. I thought you knew and just didn’t say anything.”

“But why wouldn’t you tell me?” she exclaimed, upset.

“Why should I?”

At that moment, Ian walked in.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me, Ben, I thought we were friends!” Ivy was getting increasingly louder, startling Ian, who froze as the door slammed shut behind him.

“I would’ve if you had asked me!” Ben said, running his hands in his hair in frustration. “Why would I tell you for no reason? I make these videos for myself, and partly for Ian. Not for views, so it doesn’t matter to me if my friends and family watch them or not. I don’t see any need to tell them about it without them asking me.”

“Oh,” Ian said. “Did she realize that those are our videos?”

“You, too?” she shouted, whirling to face him.

“What do you mean, ‘you, too?’” Brendan asked, groaning in frustration. “If I’m Liam, it only makes sense that he’s Kota.”

“Well, then explain to me how you’re so fucking confident on camera, but not at school,” Ivy said, spinning back around to glare at him.

He scowled. “Because I’m not comfortable at school. I’m comfortable around family and friends, and talking to a camera where I don’t have to acknowledge people I don’t know as well.”

“Bullshit.”

“No,” he snapped. “It’s not. It’s god damned social anxiety, a real mental illness that I have been diagnosed with and have to take medication for, so don’t you fucking tell me it’s bullshit.”

“Ben,” Ian started, but Brendan cut him off.

“I am done, so completely done, with people telling me that my problem is bullshit,” he snapped. “Because it’s not like I asked for this. You think I like being nervous around people? Fuck no. You know what’s bullshit? The fact that I need medication not to go into a fucking panic attack when I meet new people.  _ That’s _ fucking bullshit. The fact that sometimes it doesn't even work.  _ That _ is fucking bullshit. The fact that people don’t understand that it’s not something I can control-- That,  _ that _ is what’s fucking bullshit.”

Ivy stood speechless as Brendan started to tear up in his anger, and he let out a frustrated growl.

"Ben," Ian said, pulling him further back into the storage room. "Come on, let's get you calmed down. Ivy, go clock us in."

"I-"

_ "Go,  _ Ivy."


	27. Chapter 27

“H-hey, Ivy?” Brendan said as she walked through the door leading up from the theatre basement. She looked up startled. He was red-eyed and fidgeting with the tie line hooking the lighting tool in his back pocket to his belt loop. “I just- I’m- I shouldn’t h-have, um, I shouldn’t have fli- flipped out like…. uh, I did… earlier.”

“No,” she said. “It was my fault. Um. Should we talk more in the storage room?”

He nodded shakily and followed her the short walk to their crew’s domain.

“Look I-” he began, ducking his head and rubbing it with his left hand. “I- S-sorry. I should have, um, should have, tol… told you.”

“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “No, you were right. I shouldn’t have expected that. It’s your business and it’s not like we’ve been friends for years or anything, so I’m sorry.”

“I, um,” he started, but she interrupted him.

“No. This is my apology, so shut up and take it.”

“But-”

“Only mention butts if it’s the kind I can look at and appreciate,” she said and he chuckled.

“Can’t we… um, both be… be sorry?”

“No. Because you have no reason to be.”

“But I… I snapped at- at you a-and… and I- I got angry, and um…” he trailed off, fidgeting nervously.

Ivy let out an exaggerated sigh and shook her head with a small grin. “Fine, I guess you can apologize for that if you want to.”

He chuckled lightly and shifted on his feet. “I’m sorry I, um, flipped… out on… uh, you…”

“It’s honestly fine. How about we just move on now?”


	28. Chapter 28

“I think they’re gay,” Mark said, leaning forward on the lunch table to better see the video on Julia’s phone. Ivy laughed next to him.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were dating,” she said.

“Really?” Julia asked. “I mean, they could be gay, that wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t think they’re dating.”

“What’s your reasoning?” Ivy asked.

“Well, it seems like Liam’s always annoyed with Kota and just kind of puts up with him because they’re friends.”

“But why would they be friends if he was really annoyed with him?”

“You can’t just think you know these people, Julia,” Mark added. “These are edited videos that aren’t even close to their everyday lives.”

Julia rolled her eyes. “I know, Mark. I just don’t think they’re dating.”


	29. Chapter 29

“Hey, Jen, I gotta question for ya,” Miranda shouted, jogging to catch up to the other girl.

“Oh, hey Mran! What’s up?” Jenna said, smiling over her shoulder at Miranda.

“You do those vlogs, right? You just started using CamCloud, I heard.”

“Yeah, why?” Jenna shifted her bag on her shoulder and moved out of the way as a boy rode past on a bike.

“I may or may not have told two of my friends that I’m friends with you and now they’re begging me to convince you to collab with them,” Miranda said quickly, grinning sheepishly.

Jenna laughed. “Trust me, babe, you’re not the first. I’m gonna have to say no, like I have everyone else.”

Miranda smirked. “But see, here’s the thing, I think you’ll be a bit more willing to collab with these two than other people who have asked.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Cos they just so happen to be Liam and Kota.”

Jenna stopped and spun on her heel to face Miranda. “You’re fucking with me.”

Miranda laughed. “They’re my theatre babies. I was a senior when they were freshman.”

“You better not be lying.”

“I can video chat them with you later.”

Jenna reached out and gripped Miranda’s face on either side. “You are a beautiful human being and I would totally kiss you if you were into that. Thank you.”


	30. Chapter 30

“So, I asked the boys ahead of time, and they said it was cool if I told you their first names,” Miranda said and she turned on her laptop.

Jenna looked at her skeptically. “First names?”

Miranda shrugged. “They go by their middle names cos Brendan’s not comfortable with his real name being on the internet. Brendan is Liam, by the way. And Kota’s first name is Ian.”


	31. Chapter 31

“Oh my god, you’re Jenna Caito,” Ian said the second the video chat was up and running. He was still in the button-up shirt and jeans that he had worn to school that day, not having had time to change into his pyjamas as usual, but he had taken his contacts out and put on a gray beanie. Next to him, Brendan was still in his worn-out hoodie and sweatpants, hair sticking up in odd directions. His glasses hung from the collar of his hoodie. “You’re, like, a legend. Seriously, I think I’ve seen almost all your vlogs which is, like, super bizarre cos I don’t really even watch vlogs that much, apart from Ben’s obviously, and my own when I have to edit them, cos duh, kind of got to watch them to do that. Don’t think it works any other way. But, no, oh my god. I love you so much, you have no idea, you’re like, my idol.”

“Hey, Mran,” Brendan added with a grin as the two girls laughed at the Sioux boy’s rapid-fire words.

“Sup, twerps. How ya been?” Miranda asked.

“Ben’s crew head!” Ian exclaimed as Brendan blushed.

Miranda cheered and Jenna laughed as Brendan nudged Ian in the side.

“Shut up, it’s not that big of a deal,” he mumbled. “Besides, we’re here to talk to Jenna.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “Whatever. And put your glasses back on, dude, you know the rules.”

Brendan let out an exaggerated groan. “I don’t wanna.”

“Nope. You can only have your glasses off in my house if you’re wearing contacts, and I know you’re not. Glasses. Now.”

“So, Miranda says your actual names are Brendan and Ian?” Jenna said after Brendan grudgingly put his glasses back on.

“He goes by Ben,” Ian said with a grin. “But otherwise, yeah.”

“Nice to meet you,” Brendan said.


	32. Chapter 32

"Why do I always have to pee in the middle of the night?" Ben asked the camera, clearly exhausted despite the dark shadows on his face from his desk lamp being the only light in the room. "It's like my body just decides to ignore the sleeping pills I take and then to be even more of a dick, it goes and just fills my bladder up for no reason so I can't sleep."

He let out a sigh.

"It's three in the morning and I can't sleep. Luckily I don't have school tomorrow."

He paused as he groaned and rested his head against the back of his computer chair. Eyes closed, he ran his left hand across his face and sighed again.

Opening his eyes, he refocused his gaze on the camera again. "Since I can't, for the life of me, sleep no matter how much I try, I thought I'd get a head start on my birthday video to Kota. And by head start, I mean I kept forgetting to make it and had planned to do it when I woke up, so it's actually just me procrastinating a few hours less than I was going to. So here it is: Happy birthday, Kota. That's it. That's all you're gonna get from me," he deadpanned, before chuckling and giving the camera smirk. "Kidding. Happy birthday, man. You're legal now, thanks for leaving me behind at the kiddy table. Me and Caity will have fun with the crayons without you, since you had to go and become an adult.

"Oh!" he said, sitting up and staring at the camera with wide eyes. "Shit, I just remembered we have crew today. So I really should be trying to sleep. Shit."

He stared blankly at his wall for a moment. Then he shrugged.

"Fuck it, I'll just finish the video and sleep later. I just wanted to say that I'm proud of you, you dork. I know that it's tough for you right now, but you're pushing through, so keep doing that."

He grinned at the camera and pulled up his left leg to hug it, his head rested against his knee. "And thanks for always being there for me. I know I can be a shit head most of the time, and I honestly don't know why you stick around me. But it means a lot. Really.

"Anyway, I'll give you your present when I see you later. Have an awesome first day of legal adulthood," he said, before pointing sternly at the camera. "And for the last time, no. I refuse to send you birthday nudes."


	33. Chapter 33

"Why do they call it the sex hallway?" Charlie asked. He was sitting on the lights storage room table, right leg folded on the table, left leg dangling off.

Kevin handed him a stack of gels to sort through and laughed. "Why do you think? People have sex in it."

"But it's nasty in there. Who would actually want to have sex in it?" the freshman asked as he took the gels.

Ian laughed. He was seated on the floor, repairing jumper cables. "It's only nasty because of all the sex that's been had in it. But I agree, it's disgusting."

"Besides, most people have been finding other parts in the theatre to do the do in that's not that hallway," Kevin said. "Someone told me once that people have done it in the locker rooms. Pretty much any place in the theatre basement is likely to have been a sex spot."

"I know for a fact that at least two couples have done it in the booth," Ian added. "Sophomore year, Ben walked in on Conner and Andy... well. Let's just say that that's how he learned what a blow job looks like."

"Who's the other couple?" Charlie asked.

Ian stared at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Oh my god, Katsaros!" Kevin said, covering his eyes. "I did not need that image. I'll never be able to look Ben in the eye, again!"

"It's not the eyes that were involved."

"Ian! Shut up! I don't want to know about your sex lives!"

Charlie gaped and his eyes darted back and forth between the senior and the junior. "Oh my god."

"Yes, that's one of the things that was said in the booth between Ben and I," Ian said with a smirk.

"Katsaros, I swear to god, if you don't shut your freaking mouth," Kevin said.

Ian laughed. "Chill out, Kov. We cleaned up when we were done."

"Cleaned what?" Brendan asked as he entered the storage room. He gave Charlie a weird look when the freshman flushed bright red.

"You two are sick, perverted bastards who need to learn how to keep it in your pants, and I refuse to step foot in the booth again," Kevin said, spinning around to glare at him.

"What?" Brendan asked.

"We were talking about places people have had sex in the theatre," Ian said.

"Did you include here in that list?" Brendan asked, gesturing to the table Charlie was sitting on.

Kevin let out a noise of disgust and Charlie jumped off the table, staring at it in horror.

“I’m kidding, chill out,” Brendan said with a laugh.


	34. Chapter 34

“Come on, get your ass up,” Brendan said, tugging at the mopey boy on the bed. Ian let out a groan and half-heartedly swatted at him. “Dude, come on. We’re meeting Jenna today.”

Ian whined and rolled away from the boy standing at the edge of the bed. “I don’t want to leave my bed.”

“Ian, come on.”


	35. Chapter 35

Brendan glanced at his phone as it lit up with Ian’s face at midnight Friday night.

“Yeah?” he said as he answered, placing it on speaker phone as he went back to editing his research paper.

_ “Sami’s dead,” _ Ian said, voice shaking.

Brendan froze. “What?”

_ “She’s dead. Ky just called me and told me.” _

Brendan covered his mouth and pushed away from his desk, staring at the wall in shock. After a minute of this, he finally spoke. “Oh my god.”

Ian’s breathing hitched.  _ “She killed herself, Ben.” _

Brendan struggled to breathe as he teared up.

_ “Ben?” _

Brendan let out a choked sob and tried not to wake up his parents. “I just-”

_ “I know.” _


	36. Chapter 36

_ “Recently, a friend of mine committed suicide,” Kota said, looking down at his crosslegged feet. He was capping and uncapping a silver marker but not drawing on his sweatpants like usual. “So I wanted to make a video about depression, in hopes of helping people to gain an understanding of why an out-going girl like her would do such a thing. _

_ “To start, depression sucks. I’m sure you can all guess that.” _

_ He paused as he let out a choked, desperate laugh. He looked down and composed himself. _

_ “But see, a lot of people seem to think that someone with depression is sad all the time. That’s not how it works. _

_ “Depression is being tired. Depression is not doing things you need to do. Depression is not doing the things you  _ want  _ to do. It’s all too difficult.” _

_ Kota took in a large breath and pressed his left hand to his eyes, knocking his glasses out of the way. He sat like this for about a minute before continuing. _

_ “Depression is seeing this lack of motivation affect the things important to you and the things you love and not caring. Depression is feeling like shit because you don’t care and you know you should.” _

_ Taking another breath and letting out another forced laugh, Kota sat back in his computer chair and stared off in a random direction. _

_ “Depression is constantly answering ‘tired’ when people ask ‘how are you?’ because ‘good’ doesn’t exist for you and it never will. _

_ “And having depression in this society is being told ‘you’re always tired’ in response to your default reply like it’s your fault that your brain is doing this to you.” _

_ Kota leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He looked directly into the camera and acted as if he was talking directly to a specific person. _

_ “Depression is not being able to function. You either forget to do things like keep up your hygiene, or do your homework, or even remember to eat. Or you just can’t be bothered to do these things. They’re not important. Nothing is. At all.” _

_ Kota let his head drop and stared at the floor. _

_ “The thing is, if people were to look at me, they wouldn’t realize I have depression. _

_ “I’m on medication that makes it easier to force myself to function. It doesn’t make me happy or make my depression go away. It just makes it easier for me to actually do things like brush my teeth or do my homework. Or to even make these videos.” _

_ He let out a light laugh and looked up at the camera again, forcing a grin. _

_ “I’m sure the people who know me in real life probably think I’m the exact opposite of depressed because I’m outgoing, and loud, and likely just downright annoying most of the time. But that’s because I force myself to be. If I don’t, I only get worse.” _


	37. Chapter 37

Ben sat on the floor of the theatre basement hallway while doing his physics homework. Ian’s head rested on his shoulder, fast asleep.

The sleeping boy’s hair was completely disheveled and his glasses were knocked askew. Instead of the usual jeans and button-up shirt he usually wore, Ian was dressed in an oversized, paint stained hoodie and sweatpants covered in marker drawings. His years old pair of black Converse sneakers had been kicked off and sat a few inches away from his sockless feet. He was curled up as close to Brendan as possible for someone his size and breathing peacefully in his sleep.

“What are you guys doing here?” Eve asked. Her eyes narrowed and she glared at the two boys as she dropped her backpack onto one of the Homecoming thrones that were stored in the basement hallway.

“I, um. It’s… We- we have forty minutes til crew starts and, um. The, uh, the lights st-storage room was locked,” Ben said.

“What’s wrong with him?” Eve asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow as she eyed Ian’s sleeping body.

Ben’s reply was cut off by Ivy rushing down the stairs and stopping next to her sister. “The storage room is locked, so I guess I’ll just hang down here with you until we start. Hey guys,” she said, dropping her bag on the floor next to the Homecoming thrones and waving at the boys.

Ben waved lightly and Eve rolled her eyes.

“Woah, is Ian okay?” Ivy asked, sitting down across from Brendan and looking at Ian in concern.

“He, um. Had a rough weekend,” Brendan said, looking down and messing with the hem of his jeans. “We… Last night his parents, um. He found out….” He trailed off and shook his head, giving a slight shrug with the shoulder Ian wasn’t leaning on. “And we heard about-”

“Wait,” Eve interrupted. “That’s Katsaros? I didn’t even recognize him!”

“He w-woke up, um, late… today. H-he just kind of threw- threw on, uh, whatever he gra- grabbed first,” Brendan said.

“He does look really different,” Ivy said. “It’s kind of freaky.”

Ben shrugged. “I guess.”

Ian made a small noise in his sleep and shifted his head slightly. Brendan closed his eyes and leaned his head against Ian’s, letting out a sigh.

“He kind of looks like that one CamCorder you like, Ivy,” Eve said, narrowing her eyes as she looked at Ian. “Kota, I think his name was.”

Brendan and Ivy laughed.

“I would be a little concerned if he didn’t,” Ivy said. “Seeing as he  _ is _ Kota.”


	38. Chapter 38

“You alright if I put some music on?” Jenna asked.

Brendan shrugged while Ian grinned and nodded.

“Thanks, I just have so many things going through my head right now and music helps me focus. I can barely remember what things I was gonna ask you,” she said with a grin.

“If it makes you feel any better, we didn’t even plan our questions for you. We’re just gonna wing it,” Ian said and the three laughed.

“Alrighty, lemme get my camera rollin’ and we can get started,” Jenna said.

“Is it cool if I film too?” Brendan asked, fiddling with his camera.

“Yeah, sure!”

Brendan started recording with a nod. He immediately pointed it directly at Ian’s face, as close as he could.

“What are you doing?” Ian asked with a laugh.

“Making sure everyone can see your pores,” Brendan said, cracking a small grin.

Ian chuckled and pushed the camera to a more reasonable distance from his face. “Not even I wanna see those.”

“Tell ‘em what we’re up to today, Kota,” Brendan said.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Liam,” Ian said, sticking his tongue out.

“Kota,” Brendan mock-whined.

“Hello,” Jenna shouted from where she was on the other side of the room.

“We’re talking to Jenna Caito today,” Ian said with a laugh.

“I’m making friends!” Jenna said, waving excitedly at their camera.

The two boys laughed and moved over to sit on the small couch next to Jenna’s chair. Brendan set his camera on the television stand while Jenna’s was on her tripod in front of it.

Brendan sat sideways on the left side of the couch, his back leaning against the arm-rest and his legs crossed. Ian made himself comfortable on the other end of the couch and propping his feet on the ottoman. Jenna sat in the chair to the right of the couch, sitting cross legged and angled to look at both boys.

“So I have Liam and Kota in my living room,” Jenna said.

“We decided to have an interview thing,” Brendan said, squeezing his ankle.

Ian grinned. “Because Jen here has been making videos much longer than us so we figured ‘why not ask her about her experience?’”

“And I wanted to ask them what it’s been like becoming popular vloggers on a new website so fast,” Jenna said. “And some other stuff.”

“What other stuff?” Brendan asked.

Jenna just laughed. “You’ll see. Let’s just get started. You wanna go first?”

Ian shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Liam, you got any questions yet?”

“Nah,” Brendan said, shifting in his seat to get more comfortable. “You come up with something.”

“Uh,” Ian said, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling in contemplation. “Uh… Why did you start making videos?”

Jenna leaned back in her chair and relaxed a bit more. “I guess I just liked the idea of it? I liked to talk to my camera like it was a real person, and when I started getting more popular, I realized I really was talking to real people in a way. What about you?”

“Kota wanted to write a story about vloggers,” Brendan said, picking at the hem of his shirt as he gave Ian a small grin.

“I wanted to have experience as a vlogger before I wrote about one,” Ian added. “I talked Liam into vlogging with me because we’re practically inseparable, so it just makes sense for him to do it too.”

“Lucky for him, I actually enjoy it,” Brendan said, nudging Ian with his foot. Ian swatted his foot away and laughed.

“You like to write?” Jenna asked, smiling.

“He does, but he sucks at it,” Brendan said.

“I do not!” Ian protested.

Brendan rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. He doesn’t suck, but he’s not that good at writing comedy or other light-hearted stories, which, unfortunately, are his favorite genre.”

“You’re so mean to me,” Ian pouted.

“Aw, babe, did I hurt your feelings?” Brendan asked, moving to scooch closer to the other boy on the couch and smirking deviously.

“Tremendously. I’ve never been so betrayed. I trusted you.”

“Write better stories, and maybe I’ll be nicer.”

Ian laughed and shoved Brendan back and grinned at Jenna.


	39. Chapter 39

_ “Hey, it’s Jenna! I’m here with Liam and Kota-” _

_ “Again!” Kota interrupted, grinning maniacally at the camera. Liam and Jenna laughed. _

_ “He’s totally freaking out about getting to do another collab,” Liam said. “He’s still not done fangirling over the fact that we actually know her now.” _

_ “Anyway, we decided to play a little story-telling game for you all,” Jenna continued. _

_ “Basically, one of us will take out one of the white  _ Cards Against Humanity _ cards and add it to our story.” _


	40. Chapter 40

_ “Around the end of January, beginning of February, I asked some friends of mine, Parker and Ivy, to help me with a project when we got back to school after winter break,” Liam said, sitting cross legged in his computer chair. “They agreed and we just recently finished said project. _

_ “I had Ivy get people’s opinions of me, Liam ‘Focus,’ the CamCloud vlogger. I had Parker get their opinions of this guy named Brendan, who everyone calls Ben. I won’t say exactly what they said, but I can give you the idea. The things they had to say about me were positive. The things said about Ben? Not so much.” _

_ Liam took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. “See, everyone at our school knows Ben has social anxiety. It’s painfully obvious. But what most people don’t know is that I have social anxiety.” _

_ He laughed. “It’s not always obvious, guys. But it’s still there, and it’s still incredibly important. Don’t belittle something that someone does to overcome their anxiety, even if it seems simple or stupid to you. Because it’s huge for them. _

_ “So, with all that said, I have a confession to make,” Liam said. “My name isn’t Liam.” _

_ He grinned and sheepishly looked down at his crossed legs. _

_ Looking up at the camera again, the video cut to another recording of him. His hair was messed up, his glasses were uncleaned and sitting on his nose, and he was wearing a ratty old sweatshirt and old jeans. He was sitting in the same position. With a laugh, he continued. “My name is Brendan Kavanagh. Liam is short for my middle name. And this is what I usually wear to school, and that’s on a good day. _

_ “Everyone who knows me in real life knows me as Ben, that weird kid who’s so shy it’s literally crippling sometimes. I only started these videos because Ian - you know him as Kota - asked me to.” _

_ Liam laughed breathily and ran his left hand through his hair. “To be completely honest, I almost decided not to make the first video. Maybe that would have saved me from all the drama that’s happening in my school now that they’ve all got their heads out of their ass and finally realized that Ian and I were the ones making videos the whole time.” _

_ He sat up and fixed a hard look at the camera. “But they’ve got no right to be pissed at us because it’s none of their damn business. Why the fuck do they expect me to tell them what I do in my free time? If they’re too stupid to realize it’s me right away, that’s their problem, not mine. _

_ “I don’t owe them anything. I won’t apologize for the fact that I wasn’t comfortable using my real name online. I won’t apologize for the fact that I saw no reason to make it known at my school that I was making CamCloud videos. I won’t apologize for the fact that the people in my life respected my decision to use my middle name enough that they were willing to use their middle names as well. I won’t apologize for the fact that I didn’t trust the friends I made online with my real name.” _

_ Liam crossed his arms as he uncrossed his legs, leaning back in the chair but not breaking his gaze away from the camera. “Because you know what? It was my choice and it hasn’t hurt anyone. I can understand if I were to say something problematic, like a sexist comment or something, and get hate from it, but all I did was use my middle name on the internet. So if you have a problem with that, resort your priorities.” _

_ He looked to the side and glared, as if the people causing him trouble were standing just out of the camera’s vision. Then he looked back at the camera, glare still in place. _

_ “I wouldn’t be as pissed if they were just mad at me. But Ian doesn’t need to deal with this. He has enough going on with his family and he doesn’t need a bunch of asshats calling him an attention-seeking liar when all he wants to do is make videos for fun.” _


	41. Chapter 41

Ian Katsaros met Brendan Kavanagh in the second grade when they were seven.

Brendan was new, everyone in the school knew this. He was short, though not the shortest in the grade, and his short hair spiked up in a way that showed his mom had tried to brush his hair only to have it messed up by his hat. His metal glasses were covered in smudges and fingerprints and his shirt was covered in paint stains. He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt as the teacher had him stand at the front of the class and introduced him.

“Do you go by any nicknames, Brendan?” Ms. Simmons asked and Ian barely heard the other boy’s quiet reply in the echoing gym.

“Ben,” he said, and Ms. Simmons repeated it for the class to hear.

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out my tumblr!](https://haljordanisbatman.tumblr.com/)


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